Australian pacer Shaun Tait announced his retirement from all forms of cricket on Monday. A chronic elbow injury finally ended Tait’s career at the age of 34.
Known as “The Wild Thing” for his pace and bowling action, Tait played three Tests, 35 One-Day Internationals and 21 Twenty20 Internationals for Australia. He was also a part of Australia’s unbeaten campaign at the 2007 World Cup in West Indies.
Tait holds the unofficial record for the equal second-fastest delivery ever bowled in international cricket, a 161.1 kilometre per hour, bowled against England in 2010.
“I honestly wanted to play a couple more years, whether it was over in the UK or here,” Tait told cricket.com.au. “I knew it was going to be difficult getting older to compete with the young blokes. But I didn’t know it was going to be as difficult as it was this year [with the Hurricanes]. Pretty much getting left out of the side or not being able to play because of my elbow, either way there’s no point going on with it.”
Tait had a feeling that he was going to hang up his boots after the Big Bash. “I knew during the Big Bash that I was going to finish up. The elbow has pretty much gone off a cliff now, it’s done and dusted,” he said. “I’m 34 years old and I suppose when you’re not contributing on the field as much as you’d like to, it’s time to finish up.”
The Australian was a deadly pacer in the shorter format of the game. Tait recently became an Overseas Citizen of India. In the Indian Premier League, he played for the Rajasthan Royals and Kolkata Knight Riders.