SYDNEY: Australian wicketkeeper-batsman Matthew Wade, who played in all three formats of the game for his country, announced his retirement from international cricket and a move into coaching on Tuesday.

The 36-year-old played 36 Tests, 97 One-day Inter­nationals and 92 Twenty20s for Australia, making his last appearance at the T20 World Cup earlier this year where his team made an early exit.

“I’m officially retiring,” the lefthander, a pivotal figure in Australia’s T20 World Cup triumph in 2021, said in a Cricket Australia news release. “I was fully aware my international days were most likely over at the end of the last T20 World Cup.

“It’s been an ongoing discussion for pretty much every tour or every World Cup that I’ve been on in the last three or four years. If we went into the last World Cup and I managed to get some runs and we won that, then things would look maybe a little different and maybe I’d keep going. It was just kind of an understanding from all of us.”

The 36-year-old is now set to Australia’s wicket-keeping and fielding coach for the T20 series against Pakistan next month.

“Coaching has been on my radar over the last few years and thankfully some great opportunities have come my way, for which I am very grateful and excited,” he said.

Wade played for his country for 13 years and filled in as T20 captain between December 2020 and February 2024.

He played a number of different roles for Australia over a 13-year international career but it was as a finisher at the 2021 T20 World Cup that he played his most important innings, an unbeaten 41 that got Australia past Pakistan in the semis.

His finishing skills were not required in the final as Australia thrashed New Zealand by eight wickets in Dubai to win the title for the first time.

Wade would probably have played more Tests had it not been for the strong competition from fellow wicketkeepers Brad Haddin and Tim Paine but battled his way back into the side for the 2019 Ashes series, which Australia drew 2-2 to retain the urn.

The Tasmanian scored two of his four Test centuries in that series as he accumulated 1,613 runs over his career at an average of a shade under 30.

“Matthew was a much-loved teammate in Australian teams across all formats over the past 13 years,” said Cricket Australia’s Ben Oliver. “His resilience and adaptability were a feature throughout his career, and he should be incredibly proud of the impact that he had at international level.”

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2024