Fiery opening batsman Colin Munro has announced his retirement from international cricket, four years after he last played for the Black Caps.
Colin Munro announced his retirement from international cricket after he was not included in the national team for the upcoming T20 World Cup.
The aggressive New Zealand batter, who has scored over 3000 runs in international cricket, has not played for the national side in the last four years with his most recent appearance coming in a T20I against India in 2020.
Munro played one Test, 57 ODIs and 65 T20Is for the Kiwis amassing a total of 3010 runs, but it was in the shortest format where the left-hander made a name for himself.
In T20Is, he has managed runs at an impressive 156.44 and the 37-year-old remains one of the few players to have made more than 10000 runs in all T20 competitions.
The Durban-born cricketer has made 10961 runs with 428 T20s, averaging 30.44 and scoring 141.25.
Munro has some fine records against his name as his 14-ball 50 at Sri Lanka at Eden Park in 2016 still stands at the fastest T20I fifty by a New Zealand batsman, and the fourth quickest of all time.
He also has a 47-ball century against the West Indies to his credit in 2018, and at that time it was the fastest T20I hundred by a Kiwi, which also made him the first player to score three T20I tons.
He told ESPNCricinfo that he was badly underdone heading into the test after being asked to stay on tour as injury cover after the T20 series.
“I neglected my batting in the nets because I was just getting ready for the one-day series afterwards, so I didn’t do a lot of red-ball preparation with the bat,” Munro said.
He averaged over 50 in first class cricket – with 13 centuries and 15 half centuries.
“I honestly thought I deserved a spot,” Munro told ESPNCricinfo.
“And not just because of my average but the weight of runs that I scored. At the time, you’re very disappointed – and a little bit bitter – that you’re not playing test cricket, because that’s what you wanted to do.”
He felt he may also have been hampered by then-captain Brendon McCullum batting in the middle order with the selectors not wanting two aggressive middle-order batters.
After McCullum retired in 2016 however he was at a loss to understand his non-selection.
He found himself looking at some of the players picked and thinking, “How did they get there?’ I felt like I had to ask some tough questions to the management, and they just said that my method – the way that I played first-class cricket – wouldn’t work at test level.”
NZC chief executive Scott Weenink said Munro would be remembered as one of New Zealand’s best multi-format batsman.
“He was one of the pioneers of the new game, an innovative batsman who took calculated risk-taking to a new level, and led what was to become a revolution in the way short-form cricket was played.”