The 37-year-old Dawid Malan, who was formerly ranked as England’s top T20I batter, has declared his retirement from international cricket. Playing in 22 Tests, 30 ODIs, and 62 T20Is, Malan is one of just two England men’s batsmen, together with Jos Buttler, to have scored hundreds in each of the three international formats.
He had not played for England since the World Cup in India last year, though, and he made it clear that he was making the decision when he was left out of the next white-ball series against Australia.
Dawid Malan first big break with England came during the winter Ashes tour the following year, when he scored his only Test century (140 from 227 balls) at Perth with Jonny Bairstow.
This was despite the fact that he had made a splash with a flowing innings of 78 from 44 on his T20I debut against South Africa in 2017.
But it was in the T20I format that he really rose to prominence, especially after England’s 2019 ODI World Cup victory. His run-scoring prowess, which included a 48-ball century at Napier during the team’s winter tour of New Zealand, forced his way into the 20-over plans.
After rising to the top of the ICC T20I batting rankings in September 2020, he became the first men’s player to amass 1000 runs in the format in March of the same year, needing just 24 innings, all of which had been at least double figures. In 2022, he emerged victorious in the T20 World Cup held in Australia; however, his participation was cut short due to a groin injury sustained during a match against Sri Lanka.
Despite the general belief that the ODI format was the one for which Malan was most suited, Malan took longer to establish himself in the team because of the 50-over squad’s success. His T20I performances were often criticised for his tendency to start an innings cautiously before unleashing his full arsenal of strokes towards the end of the game.
He did, however, grasp the opportunity when it presented itself, amassing five ODI hundreds in the span of 15 innings between June 2022 and September 2023, to unquestionably establish himself as the England team’s replacement for incumbent opener Jason Roy for the 2023 World Cup. After helping England defeat Bangladesh in the tournament’s opening encounter in Dharamsala with a sixth century, he was unable to withstand the negative effects of the team’s underwhelming performance overall.
Malan acknowledged that he had “exceeded all expectations of myself in white-ball formats” in an interview with The Times, but he also acknowledged that he would regret not being able to carve out a more successful Test career. Of the regular England players of the previous ten years, only Alastair Cook, Joe Root, and Jonny Bairstow have higher averages than his 33.00. Ten of his 22 games came on back-to-back tours of Australia in 2017–18 and 2021–22. He did not, however, return to the format following England’s 146-run loss in Hobart in January 2022.
“Test cricket was always the pinnacle for me growing up,” he explained. “I felt like a better player, so it was disheartening because even if I played well at times, I wasn’t good or consistent enough in between.
“While I took all three forms of cricket very seriously, the intensity of Test cricket was unparalleled—it lasted for five days plus additional days of build-up. I adore training; I used to spend a lot of time hitting a lot of balls and working out hard in the build-up. The days were long and demanding. You are unable to turn off. I felt it to be really mentally taxing, especially the lengthy Test series I participated in, when I began to perform worse in the third or fourth Test.”
On the pitch, though, I always did what I thought was proper to help the team win. I never left the pitch after scoring a run, regardless of whether we won or lost. Everything revolved around winning, and I would constantly doubt if I had made the proper choices on the pitch to achieve that.
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After finishing his England career, Malan is probably going to be in high demand on the T20 franchise circuit. His most recent game action was for the Oval Invincibles, where he assisted the team in winning the Men’s Hundred, two years after he played for the Trent Rockets, who won the 2022 championship. He played in both the PSL for Multan Sultans and the SA20 for Sunrisers Eastern Cape, helping the latter win its second season.
India
