Dawid Malan, England's top-ranked batter, retires from international cricket

After being dropped from the Australia series, England's former top-ranked ICC T20I batter Dawid Malan on Wednesday retired from international cricket — likely as a protest.

He is one of the two English batters who have hit centuries in all three international formats of the game — Tests, ODIs and T20Is.

The brokenhearted left-handed batter made this decision most likely to register his grievance after the management excluded him from the upcoming white-ball series against Australia.

Earlier this week, England announced white-ball squads to face Australia in a three-match T20I series and five-match ODIs in September. They named five uncapped players for the T20I squad, and three of them also got berths on the ODI team.

After his debut in international cricket in 2017, the 36-year-old batter represented his country in 22 Tests, 30 one-day internationals and 62 T20s. In his maiden innings, he scored 78 runs from 44 balls against South Africa.

England's star run-maker achieved his first milestone in Test cricket during the Ashes series, where he scored 140 runs in a single innings. He scored six ODI centuries in just 30 innings.

However, the batter faced criticism in T20I fixtures due to his style of gradually starting the innings by scoring runs and accelerating it later.

Opening up about his biggest regret in an exclusive interview with The Times, Malan said that he always found it challenging to maintain performance in Test cricket series.

He further added, "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."

"I exceeded all expectations of myself in white-ball formats. Test cricket was always the pinnacle for me growing up. At times, I played well, but in between, I just wasn't good enough or consistent enough, which was disappointing because I felt I was a better player than that.

"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."

Malan is expected to continue playing in T20 franchise leagues. Recently, he was part of the Oval Invincibles and won The Hundred.

Furthermore, he has also played for teams like Sunrisers Eastern Cape in the SA20 and was also in action for Multan Sultans in the Pakistan Super League (PSL).