New Zealand's Todd Astle Retires From Test To Focus On White-ball Career

New Zealand leg-spinner Todd Astle has brought down curtains on red-ball career in order to focus on limited-overs cricket. The spinner was set to play for New Zealand in the upcoming unofficial Tests against India A but has now made himself unavailable for the series.

The 33-year old made his Test debut way against Sri Lanka way back in 2012 but never managed to cement his spot in the team. As a result, he played just five Tests for the Black Caps.

His final Test appearance for his national team came against Australia in Sydney earlier this month. Todd Astle finishes his Test career with 7 wickets and 98 runs from 5 games. While confirming his decision, Todd Astle stated that he has started to find the demands of preparing for the red-ball formats a challenge.

“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,” Todd Astle said.

“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,” he added.

Astle has played nine One Day Internationals and three T20Is for New Zealand. In ODIs, he picked up ten wickets while in the shortest format of the game, he picked up three wickets. In first-class cricket, he played 119 matches scoring 4345 runs at 25.86 and taking 334 wickets at 32.17 having started his career as an opening batsman for Canterbury. He finishes as the highest first-class wicket-taker for Canterbury with 303 wickets.

New Zealand selector Gavin Larsen congratulated Todd on his long-form career.

“To prepare and play four-day cricket at such a level for the best part of 15 seasons is a credit to him and his perseverance,” said Larsen.

“He wants to get the most out of himself at this stage of his career and spend more time with his family, and those are admirable reasons,” he added.

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