2018 - A YEAR IN REVIEW

Retirements in 2018, and their groundbreaking intrigue

by Pratyush Sinha • Last updated on

Despite his retirement, de Villiers will turn up in different colours © Getty

The retirements in 2018 were groundbreakingly intriguing because they weren't all about getting away from cricket. A chunk of them were meant to prolong careers for good, meaning cricket could have its superstars for longer and the fans their heroes, but it was to come at a cost. AB de Villiers turned up for Tshwane Spartans but not South Africa, Morne Morkel was more Surrey than #ProteaFire, and Dwayne Bravo was everywhere but in the West Indies, yet again. That's not what retirements used to be about.

The trend brought to the fore cricket's unique world, where different formats co-exist as much as they cannibalize each other. Test, ODI, T20I, T20, T10 and now The Hundred: cricket has perhaps made evolution all about newer formats across its centuries of existence, and frankly speaking, it was exciting until now, when there's too much cricket and too many kinds of cricket. And those who play the sport - also human beings with limited bandwidth - are starting to fall out.

De Villiers's retirement in May was the most chilling of all. The shock wasn't in how sudden the announcement was but in when it came. The 2019 World Cup was less than a year away and de Villiers had just made a successful return to Test cricket, ending the three-match series against India as the difference between the sides and following it up with a 71-plus average against Australia across four Tests. In hindsight, de Villiers, in all his greatness, didn't want to pick and choose. The world didn't want him to.

"I've made a big decision today," was how he captioned the video tweet that made the announcement, three days after RCB bowed out of the race for IPL playoffs. "I have had my turn and, to be honest, I am tired. It's not about earning more somewhere else. It's about running out of gas and feeling that it is the right time to move on. Everything comes to an end."

And so ended two other great careers in Alastair Cook and Rangana Herath. Cook retired after the fifth Test against India at The Oval in September, capping the leanest phase of his career with scores of 71 and 147 and finishing as the fifth-most prolific run-scorer in Test cricket. Herath's last, on the other hand, was against England at Galle, a venue where he made his Test debut in 1999, bloomed into cricket's most successful left-arm spinner, and could probably run through oppositions with a paper mache ball.

Alastair Cook retired at a relatively early age of 34 ©Getty

It was amazing how two very differently successful careers ended within months of each other. Cook started young, secretly threatened Sachin Tendulkar's numbers for a decade, and retired young at 34; Herath returned to Test cricket aged 31, never allowed Sri Lanka to endure the ghosts of Muttiah Muralitharan's past and went on till 40, late-blooming like no one ever has in cricket.

Morne Morkel, who unlike Cook and Herath had years of international cricket left in him, went the Kolpak way after lack of assurances from coach Ottis Gibson with regards to the 2019 World Cup. He played his last Test against Australia in April, ending with 309 wickets in 86 Tests, and now represents Surrey in England's domestic competitions.

Ireland's Joyce twins, Isobel and Cecelia, announced their retirements from international cricket during the Women's World T20, joining their teammates Clare Shillington and Ciara Metcalfe in a mass exodus of sorts.

Dwayne Bravo's retirement in October was a lesser loss to international cricket because he hadn't played it for over two years. "I still remember that moment I received the maroon cap before walking onto the Lord's Cricket Ground against England in July 2004," Bravo's retirement note read. "The enthusiasm and passion I felt then, I have kept with me throughout my career. However, I must accept that for me to preserve my longevity as a professional cricketer, I must do as others before have done, leave the international arena for the next generation of players."

The good thing is that he's not done with cricket, unlike Christopher Carter, whose retirement was the most honest, the most literal of them all. "I already put my studies on hold before, but I think it's time to do what I've always wanted to do, and that is to become a pilot," announced the 21-year-old who was a part of Hong Kong's Asia Cup squad this year.

Many formats also meant many kinds of retirements. Mohammad Hafeez, missing from Pakistan's Asia Cup squad this year but recalled for the ODIs against New Zealand in the UAE, bid farewell to Test cricket in the series that followed immediately after. Azhar Ali, out of favour in ODI cricket, stepped back from the format he's been considered perpetually slow for; Jhulan Goswami retired from T20 Internationals to allow the next gen to take over whereas David Miller took a break from first-class cricket at 29 to build up to the World Cup year.

In other major goodbyes, Gautam Gambhir, Mitchell Johnson, Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood bid farewell to all forms of cricket, as did Niall O'Brien, Ed Joyce, Praveen Kumar, RP Singh, Munaf Patel, S Badrinath, Abdur Rehman and Nick Compton.

With a host of retirements, and the changing nature of it, 2018 might not have been a year for the cricket oldsters. It was harrowing to see young players leave cricket, youngish players leave international cricket, and the not very young players wear out with time. 2018 belonged to those born to cricket in times of plenty. They don't mind the plurality of cricket, and they don't mind cricket paying a price for it with the best it has.

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