HARARE – Zimbabwe cricket captain Hamilton Masakadza has called time on his 18-year international career after announcing his retirement from all formats of the game at the end of the upcoming Twenty20 international triangular series in Bangladesh.
Masakadza, 36, set a world record in 2001 when, at the age of 17 years and 354 days, he scored 119 against the West Indies in Harare to become the youngest player to make a century on test debut, a mark beaten months later by Bangladesh’s Mohammad Ashraful.
Masakadza bows out having played 38 tests, in which he scored 2,223 runs, including five centuries and eight fifties, 209 one-day internationals and more than 60 Twenty20 internationals.
“It has been an enormous privilege to have played for and captained the country. This is one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make,” Masakadza told journalists in Harare on Tuesday.
“Throughout my international career… it has always been about giving everything for the team, playing with dignity and upholding the spirit of the game. It has not been an easy road, I failed at times but I never stopped trying.”
Masakadza said he felt “the time is right for the focus to shift to the next generation.”
His brothers, Shingi and Wellington, have also represented their country across all three formats of the game.
