Australian legend Meg Lanning bids adieu to international cricket

Legendary Australian captain Meg Lanning brought curtains down on her illustrious 13-year-old international career. She is a seven-time World Cup winner. Incredibly enough, five of them she won as the leader of the team. She is also a Commonwealth Games gold medallist and Australia’s greatest run scorer across all women’s formats.

The 31-year-old ends her international career with 241 matches for Australia – six Tests, 103 ODIs and 132 T20Is. She will continue playing domestic cricket, and tournaments like Women’s Premier League and Women’s Big Bash League.

Lanning said that she had been thinking about retirement over the last 18 months, during which she also took a couple of breaks from the game due to different reasons. According to the right-handed batter, she realised that it was the right time to retire over the course of the last 48 hours. Lanning also stated that she was feeling better after making the decision as she became clear about her future.

“I’ve come to the realisation that I’ve probably been trying to convince myself a little bit over the last 18 months why I should keep playing and what it is that I want to achieve. I’m not someone who can do things half-in half-out. I’ve battled away a little bit trying to work all that out. But it sort of became quite clear, particularly over the last couple of days that this was the right call and what I’m ready for. Since I’ve made the decision I’ve certainly felt a little bit relieved, I guess, to have made a call and be a little bit clearer on what the next little bit looks like,” Lanning was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.