Wicketkeeper batter, Matthew Wade, on the morning of Tuesday, October 29, announced his international retirement and will be taking up a new role for the Pakistan limited overs series at home in the upcoming days.
As he put curtains over a 225-match international career, Wade is set to take up coaching roles with the national team as he will be the wicketkeeping and fielding coach of the Australian team for the T20 series against Pakistan.
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Why did Matthew Wade retire from international cricket?
The 36-year-old Tasmanian had already called it a day FC cricket in the previous summer and was only playing white ball cricket for some time. He also featured in the recent T20 World Cup in June where Australia got eliminated from the Super 6 round.
He recently also completed the Level Three coaching certificate and is ambitious to become the head coach at some point in time.
Talking about his retirement and how he realized that it was time to call it a day,
"I'm officially retiring. It's been an ongoing discussion for pretty much every tour or every World Cup that I've been on in the last three or four years. It's been a really fluent conversation that I've had with George (Bailey, chief selector) and Ronnie (coach Andrew McDonald) over the last six months or since the last World Cup finished,"
"Even leading into the last World Cup, we've been really open and had really great communication around where I'm at with my career. In the last world cup, if I managed to get some runs and we won that, then things would look maybe a little different and maybe I'd keep going…it was just kind of an understanding from all of us," he added
About what led to the final decision, Wade said that it was the match against India where they lost by 24 runs when he knew the time is up,
"It probably hit home after we lost against India. That was when I really sat down and reflected that that was probably the end of my career. That was an emotional moment. The relationships that I've built, more over the last three years in that team. I really enjoy playing in that team, and felt really connected to that playing group and that coaching staff," he concluded.
While making his statement, he also felt that it was time for a youngster, particularly Josh Inglis, to take over the gloves as the team's number-one keeper and bat in the middle order.
| Format | Matches | Innings | Runs | Highest | 50/100 | Catches | Stumpings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tests | 36 | 63 | 1613 | 117 | 5/4 | 74 | 11 |
| ODIs | 97 | 83 | 1867 | 100* | 11/1 | 108 | 9 |
| T20Is | 92 | 68 | 1202 | 80 | 3/0 | 58 | 6 |
Wade, as an incredible striker of the ball down the order was also in the thick of things in Australia's T20 World Cup winning captain when he hit Shaheen Afridi for three back-to-back sixes in the 19th over when Australia needed 22 in 12 and 18 from 8 to take them to the final and eventually win the tournament.
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