Saturday, April 27, 2024

Scotland’s Calum MacLeod announces retirement from international cricket


Calum MacLeod has introduced his retirement from international cricket.

“Having announced my retirement to the team a few days ago, I’m sitting here thinking back to what inspired me in the first place and that would be the Scotland versus Australia game at the 1999 World Cup,” McLeod stated in a press release launched by Cricket Scotland earlier within the week. “I remember watching that and thinking ‘that is what I want to do’ and it lit a fire inside me to go on and do everything I could to play for Scotland.

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“So, to quick ahead to now as I step again having performed in 5 World Cups, I feel in case you’d instructed me method again then what I’d go on to attain with my nation, I would not have believed you.”

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MacLeod, 33, made his full international debut in 2008 – though he had started out the year before at ICC pathway events – and played 88 ODIs and 64 T20Is, representing Scotland in four T20 World Cups and one 50-over World Cup. He ended with 3026 runs at an average of 38.30 in ODIs – which included ten centuries – and 1238 runs at 23.80 in T20Is. He has the second-most runs for Scotland in ODIs behind Kyle Coetzer and is fourth on the list in T20Is. One of his notable contributions came in 2018, when he struck 140 not out in Edinburgh to help Scotland beat England for the first time in an ODI.

McLeod was part of the ongoing T20 World Cup in Australia, too, and made 48 runs in three matches in the first round. Scotland started their campaign by springing an upset on West Indies but failed to qualify for the main competition, the Super 12s, after losing their next two matches against Ireland and Zimbabwe.

“Finishing after this World Cup in Australia has been powerful as a result of we did not handle to attain what we wished to attain, however I depart the group with an actual sense of hope that, with the best backing and the best alternatives, the present group can actually go far and might encourage many,” he said. “My profession with Scotland has been stuffed with some actual highs and some lows, I really feel extraordinarily lucky to have performed for my nation 229 occasions.

“It was something that I never took for granted and it was a huge honour and a privilege. I hope I have entertained a few people along the way and, ultimately, I feel like I am leaving the team in a better place than when I started this amazing journey.”

Scotland head coach Shane Burger stated, “I am incredibly sad to see his career end particularly in the fashion it did with us bowing out of the World Cup in the first round as it would not have been how Calum would have wanted.

“For me personally, Calum leaves an ideal legacy behind him in not solely the runs he scored together with ten ODI a whole bunch, but additionally his need to place in performances within the earlier a part of his profession when he was a bowler and needed to transition right into a batter. He is an extremely proficient sportsman, a implausible fielder, an actual fighter and somebody who would entrance up when it was required. Those had been his traits, and he can maintain his head actually excessive as he has left Scottish cricket in a greater place.”



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