Australian fast bowler Brett Lee retired from international cricket just days after he was forced to return home from England after sustaining another injury and a few months before he had pencilled in a possible exit from the game.
The 35-year-old, who first announced his decision on his Twitter page, sustained a right calf strain in the fourth one day match of Australia's limited overs tour of England and was forced to return home for further examination and treatment.
"I just think personally in a team environment, you have to be committed 100 percent, both mentally and physically, and I guess looking at the next two months I just didn't have that desire anymore. It wouldn't be fair on me or on the rest of the team if I was to go over there with that attitude, or, not lack of commitment, but you just get to a point in your life where you think, enough's enough, and the great run must end at some stage. It wasn't going to be post World Cup, we'd spoken about that with the selectors, and that was the time I was going to walk away from the game. But yes, I woke up this morning and it just felt like I was ready. It just felt like I was, you know, time to go," Lee says.
Lee had been expected to be available for the World Twenty20 tournament in Sri Lanka later this year, and he said he had held discussions with the selectors about retiring after that, but the most recent injury had changed those plans.
Lee last played a test match in 2008, but continued to play international limited overs matches for Australia and in India's lucrative Twenty20 competition. He retired from tests in 2010.
He told Australia's Channel Nine television he would continue to play Twenty20 cricket in Australia and India.
In his prime, Lee was one of the fastest and most aggressive bowlers in the world but has suffered from a long list of injuries that blighted his career, including stress fractures, ankle injuries, side strains and more recently a broken foot.
He took 310 test wickets at 30.81 and 380 one-day international wickets at 23.36, one short of Glenn McGrath's Australian record.
Reuters