PCA pays tribute to 2022 retirees

The PCA has paid tribute to all players who have announced their retirement in 2022 after dedicating their career to professional cricket.

At the conclusion of the summer, nine domestic players announced their retirement from professional cricket in 2022. In addition, two greats of the international game have hung up their boots, World Cup winners Anya Shrubsole and Eoin Morgan.

At the 2022 cinch PCA Awards, the Association marked their achievements through recognising the efforts of all players in the event programme and showing a film of their highlights, produced by Sky Sports.

The PCA wishes all members the very best for their transition out of the game…

When fit and firing Nathan Buck was one of the most potent seamers on the circuit. A prodigy who was clocked at 75mph as a 15-year-old and a star of England’s age groups, he made his Leicestershire debut while still a teenager and enjoyed good success with his hometown club before moving on to Lancashire and latterly Northants. He retires aged 31 having claimed 272 First-Class wickets and 156 white-ball scalps.

Griffiths was a key part of T20 Finals Day in 2015, helping Lancashire to the title with a nerveless spell of fast-medium blockhole deliveries in the semi-final and then appearing in the final as Lancashire won their first white-ball title of the century. A local lad, he was a staple of the club’s youth teams and enjoyed good success for the Red Rose in white-ball cricket, a move to Hampshire followed and then to Leicestershire, for whom he made his First-Class debut in 2017 and was their PCA representative.

One of the titans of the county game, Hildreth was a one-club man who amassed more than 17,000 First-Class runs for Somerset, putting him third on the county’s all-time list. He also holds the record for the most T20 runs for the club and hit the winning runs to clinch the 2005 Twenty20 Cup. In honour of his service, the club announced last month that they were renaming the River Stand at Taunton the James Hildreth Stand.

A wholehearted Australian seamer who gave great service to Glamorgan and Western Australia, taking 457 and 224 First-Class wickets respectively, including 18 five-wicket hauls for his adopted county. He also snared 201 white-ball wickets for Glamorgan – including more T20 wickets than anyone else – while offering unstinting loyalty and new-ball thrust across his decade-long association with the club.

Patterson epitomises the magic of county cricket. For two decades he’s served his boyhood club as a model pro, offering unflinching accuracy, total commitment and from 2019 until the latter stages of last season, a homespun presence as the club’s captain. In all he took 672 wickets for Yorkshire across the formats but it was in red-ball cricket where his old-school virtues reaped his best rewards, with 489 victims to his name, and 86 wickets across 2014 and 2015 – Yorkshire’s most recent Championship-winning seasons. With his retirement the club has lost one of its favourite sons.

The third member of the Rhodes dynasty to play First- Class cricket, George followed his father Steve into the Worcestershire first team in the summer of 2016, debuting as a 22-year-old. He made a single professional century, a List-A hundred against Yorkshire, sharing a record fifth-wicket stand with Ben Cox, before moving to Leicestershire in the autumn of 2019.

A rangy fast bowler who graduated with a human sciences degree from Oxford, Sakande came up through the ranks at Sussex and played for England U19s before making his senior debut in 2014 and played 24 games across formats for Sussex before moving to Leicestershire in 2021. In all he claimed 47 First-Class scalps and one five-wicket haul, against South Africa A in 2017.

Waller first played for his only club as a colt in 1999 and worked his way through the age-groups to become one of the county game’s finest white-ball spinners and a fielder of rare excellence. A leg-spinner, he finishes his career at Somerset as the club’s all-time leading T20 wicket-taker with a superb career economy rate, a testament to his enduing class. The long-term PCA rep has been awarded a testimonial for next year.

Wheater, 32, calls time on his trophy-laden career after 15 years as one of the finest glovemen on the circuit. A Leytonstone boy, he began at Essex as James Foster’s understudy and spent four subsequent seasons with Hampshire before returning to his boyhood club in 2017. The move coincided with the start of Essex’s run of dominance, with Wheater becoming the focal point of a fielding unit that underscored Essex’s march to four major trophies in four seasons.

Eoin Morgan retired from international cricket in June after a superlative England career which culminated in the unforgettable 2019 World Cup final victory at Lord’s against New Zealand. Morgan made his first appearance for England in May 2009 and the Dubliner went on to play 225 ODIs, 115 IT20s and 16 Tests for his adopted country, amassing 10,115 runs across formats. He retired as England’s record run-scorer in both ODI and IT20 cricket, and the 17 sixes he hit against Afghanistan at the 2019 World Cup is an ODI record. He will be remembered as England’s greatest ever white-ball captain, fostering a bold new approach which brought home the ultimate prize.

Anya Shrubsole announced her retirement from international cricket in April after a decorated career which will be best remembered for her stunning spell of bowling in the 2017 World Cup final at Lord’s, when she recorded figures of 6-46 in a nail-biting nine-run victory over India. Shrubsole is also a two-time Ashes winner and was part of the England squad which won the 2009 World Cup in Australia. She took 227 wickets across formats in her 14-year international career and became the first woman to appear on the front cover of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack in 2018.