Ireland's legendary cricketer Kevin O’Brien announced his retirement from international cricket on Tuesday. The 38-year-old star all-rounder informed about his decision by sharing a post on his Twitter account.
In the post, he expressed his disappointment with the team management, saying that he wanted to retire after playing in the upcoming T20 World Cup, but decided to end his career after being ignored by the selectors for the past year.
Kevin O'Brien made his debut for Ireland in 2006 at the age of 22. Since then he has been an important part of the team. O'Brien was instrumental in getting the team out of the list of Associate Countries to Test country status. He holds the world record for the fastest century in the history of the ICC ODI World Cup. He smashed a 50-ball century against England in 2011 and played a match-winning inning of 113 runs.
When it comes to O'Brien's international career, he played a total of 266 matches in all three formats. He scored 5850 runs with four centuries and also took 172 wickets. He tops the list of highest wicket-takers for Ireland in the ODI format with 114 wickets.
Let's take a look at Kevin O’Brien’s achievements -
- Fastest ICC World Cup century in 50 balls.
- First and only Ireland player to make a Test century.
- Only Ireland player with a century in all three formats of international cricket
- 2013 ICC Men’s Associate Cricketer of the Year
- 3rd-most ODI runs for Ireland (3619)
- 2nd-most T20I runs for Ireland (1973)
- Most ODI wickets for Ireland (114)
- 3rd most T20I wickets for Ireland (58)
- Highest Cricket World Cup partnership for the sixth wicket (162 with Alex Cusack v England)
- 4th Ireland ODI captain
- 2nd Ireland T20I captain
