Retirement of 3 Star Cricketers: 5 days and retirement of 4 legends… the cricket world became deserted

In the past few days, such news has come from the cricket world, which has shocked the fans. If we look at it, in the last five days, 4 players have said goodbye to international cricket. This list also includes the name of West Indies fast bowler Shannon Gabriel, who retired from international cricket on 28 August (Wednesday). While the latest name is of 31-year-old fast bowler Barinder Singh Saran, who announced his retirement on 29 August.

Barinder made his debut under Dhoni’s captaincy

Barinder did not get a chance to debut for the Indian team in 2016 under the captaincy of Mahendra Singh Dhoni for the last 8 years. He played his last international match on 22 June 2016 in the T20 series against Zimbabwe.

Barinder played 6 ODIs and 2 T20 International matches. He took 7 wickets in ODIs and 6 wickets in T20s. Apart from this, he played a total of 24 matches for 4 teams in IPL, in which he took 18 wickets.

Gabrion said these things in an emotional post

Gabriel wrote, ‘Over the past 12 years I have dedicated myself to playing international cricket for the West Indies. Playing this lovely game at the highest level has given me immense joy, but as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end.’

36-year-old Gabriel played 59 Tests, 25 ODIs and 2 T20 Internationals for West Indies. Gabriel performed brilliantly for his team, especially in Test cricket. Gabriel took 166 wickets in Tests, 33 in ODIs and 3 in T20 Internationals. During the St. Lucia Test in February 2019, Gabriel used abusive language for English player Joe Root. Gabriel then made an alleged comment related to homosexuality during an argument with Root. After this, the International Cricket Council (ICC) imposed a four-match ban on Gabriel and a fine of 75 percent of the match fee.

Shannon Gabriel’s International Career:
59 Tests, 166 wickets, 32.21 average
25 ODIs, 33 wickets, 34.36 average
2 T20, 3 wickets, 18.66 average

…when Malan said goodbye to international cricket

Earlier on August 28, England’s former number-1 T20 batsman David Malan retired from international cricket. Malan had not played for England since the 50-over World Cup in 2023. 37-year-old Malan played 22 Tests, 30 ODIs and 62 T20 matches for the England team. He is one of the England batsmen (along with Jos Buttler) who have scored centuries in all three formats. In September 2020, he reached the top of the ICC batting rankings in T20I cricket.

David Malan was also part of the team that won the T20 World Cup in Australia in 2022. But, he missed the knock-out round after injuring his back on the field against Sri Lanka. Since he has now left behind his cricket career with England, he can be seen playing T20 franchise cricket.

David Malan’s international career
22 Tests, 1074 runs, 2 wickets
30 ODIs, 1450 runs, 1 wicket
62 T20Is, 1892 runs, 1 wicket

Dhawan also retired from international and domestic cricket

Before these two, on August 24 (Saturday), star Indian batsman Shikhar Dhawan also announced his retirement through a social media post and said goodbye to his 13-year international career. Dhawan last played a competitive match in April this year while leading Punjab Kings in IPL 2024. He scored 24 international centuries (17 in ODIs and seven in Tests) in 269 matches. Shikhar posted the video and wrote – I am ending this chapter of my cricket journey, I am taking with me countless memories and gratitude. Thank you for the love and support! Jai Hind.

Shikhar Dhawan said in a 1 minute 17 second video- Namaskar everyone… Today I am standing at such a turning point. From where when I look back, I see only memories, and when I look forward, I see the whole world… I always had only one goal, to play for India. That happened too, for this I am thankful to many people, first of all my family, my childhood coach Tarak Sinha ji… Madan Sharma ji, under whom I learned cricket.

In this video, Gabbar further talked about his experience of playing for Team India. Dhawan said- After playing for the team, I got the love of you fans. But they say that it is necessary to turn the pages to move forward in the story. I am going to do the same. Dhawan also said in this video message that he is happy in his heart that he played cricket for the country to his heart’s content.

Dhawan said- I am very grateful to BCCI and DDCA (Delhi and District Cricket Association) for giving me this opportunity and to all the fans… I tell myself that you should not be sad that you will not play for your country again, but keep the happiness of the fact that you played for the country and this is the biggest thing for me.

Shikhar Dhawan has been a great ODI player, as he is one of only eight batsmen in the history of the format to score more than 5000 runs at an average of over 40 and a strike rate of over 90 (Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are the other Indians on the list). He has not played for India since the ODI series against Bangladesh in December 2022.

While he played all formats in his time, Dhawan’s overall ODI stats are far greater than his records in the other two formats, even though it was in Tests when he first burst onto the scene by scoring a century off 85 balls against Australia in Mohali, the fastest century by a Test debutant. Dhawan played his last T20I for India against Sri Lanka in Colombo on 29 July 2021. He played this match as captain. Dhawan’s last Test match was against England at the Oval in September 2018.

International record of Shikhar Dhawan:
T20 International – 68 matches, 1759 runs, 27.92 average, 11 half-centuries
One Day International – 167 matches, 6793 runs, 44.11 average, 17 centuries and 39 half-centuries
Test cricket- 34 matches, 2315 runs, 40.61 average, 7 centuries and 5 half-centuries
IPL – 222 matches, 6769 runs, 35.26 average, 2 centuries and 51 half-centuries