New Zealand’s right-arm leg-spinner Todd Astle has announced his retirement from the red-ball cricket to focus more on the shorter formats of the game.
The 33-year-old leg spinner from Canterbury has never been able to cement his place in New Zealand’s Test team. After being overlooked for so many years, the spinner decided to take retirement from the longest format and continue to serve the country in white-ball cricket.
Speaking about his decision, Astle said that it has been an honor to represent his nation and province in Tests and it was always his dream to play the longest format of the game. However, he also noted that Test cricket requires a lot of time and commitment which he, unfortunately, is unable to give at the current stage of his life.
“Playing test cricket was always the dream and I’m so honoured to have represented my country and province in the longest form of the game,” Astle said.
Todd Astle further stated that he is at the wrong end of his career and is finding it difficult to maintain the balance between red-ball cricket and other formats. So he decided to take a decision on what he wants to do in the future.
“Red-ball cricket is the pinnacle, but also requires a huge amount of time and effort. As I’ve got to the back end of my career I’ve found it harder to maintain the level of commitment required to be fully invested in this version of the game,” added Astle.
Although, it should be noted that he is not a regular part of New Zealand’s ODI and T20I side too.
Astle has been one of the most prolific bowlers from his province. He has taken 303 wickets for Canterbury and is the highest wicket-taker for the province, overtaking Sir Richard Hadlee in the list.
Astle has only played 5 Test matches for the Kiwi side. He took 7 wickets and scored 98 runs in those 5 Tests. On the other hand, he has played only 9 ODI games for the Black Caps since 2017.
New Zealand’s national selector Gavin Larsen congratulated Todd Astle on his illustrious first-class career.
