Dawid Malan, England’s former no.1 ranked T20I batter, has announced retirement from international cricket. This comes after Malan was not picked in the England squad for the Australia limited-overs series.
Malan, who has played 22 Tests, 30 ODIs, and 62 T20Is, is one of only two England men’s batsmen (together with Jos Buttler) to have scored a century in all three international forms. However, he had not appeared in an England side since the 50-over World Cup in India last year.
Malan, a late bloomer, lit up the stage in his maiden game – a T20I against South Africa in 2017 – with 78 runs off 44 deliveries. Malan made his England debut during the following winter’s Ashes tour, scoring 140 from 227 balls in Perth alongside Jonny Bairstow.
Malan’s heroics with the bat in T20Is propelled him to prominence for England. In 2020, he rose to the top of the ICC Men’s T20I Rankings, being crowned No. 1. A few months later, in 2021, the left-hander became the fastest to 1,000 runs in the format, doing so in only 24 innings. He was also a member of the T20 World Cup winning squad in 2022.
Dawid Malan regrets not having a fulfilling Test career
Because of the success of the 50-over squad, Malan had to wait longer to make the ODI selection. He grasped his opportunity, scoring five ODI hundreds in 15 innings between June 2022 and September 2023, to build a compelling case to replace England’s current opener, Jason Roy, in the 2023 World Cup squad.
He then scored his sixth century in England’s second match of the tournament, guiding them to win over Bangladesh in Dharamsala, but he was unable to overcome the fallout from the team’s unsatisfactory overall performance.
Malan announced his retirement, stating that he had “exceeded all expectations of myself in white-ball formats,” but admitting that his inability to create a more regular Test career would be a disappointment.
Ten of his 22 appearances came on consecutive tours of Australia in 2017-18 and 2021-22, where his average of 33.00 is bettered only by Alastair Cook, Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow. His last Test for England came in a 146-run defeat at Hobart in January 2022.
“Test cricket was always the pinnacle for me growing up. At times I played well but in between just wasn’t good enough or consistent enough, which was disappointing because I felt I was a better player than that. Then again, I exceeded all expectations of myself in white-ball formats,” Malan told the Times.
“I took all three formats extremely seriously but the intensity of Test cricket was something else: five days plus the days building up. I’m a big trainer; I love hitting lots of balls and I’d train hard in the build-up, and then the days were long and intense. You can’t switch off. I found it very mentally draining, especially the long Test series that I played, where my performances dropped off from the third or fourth Test onwards.
“But, you know, on the field I always did what I felt was right to win a game for the team. I never walked off the field if I got runs not caring about whether we had won or lost. It was always about winning and I’d always question myself as to whether I’d made the right decisions on the field to do that,” Malan stated.
💬 “Right now, as I retire from international cricket, I can say I am genuinely satisfied.”
🎙️ @DMalan29#EnglandCricket | #ThankYouMala
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) August 28, 2024
Malan retired with 1,892 runs in T20Is (62 matches), 1,450 in ODIs (30 games), and 1,074 in Tests (22 matches).
Also Read: England Name Squad For Women’s T20 World Cup 2024; Lauren Filer Misses Out
