Chadd Sayers calls time on 10-year playing career

Chadd Sayers calls time on 10-year playing career

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Sayers has called time on his playing career

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Australia’s domestic stalwart Chadd Sayers, who represented the Aussies in one Test in 2018, has officially retired from first-class cricket, having represented South Australia for a decade. Sayers will end his red-ball career as the Redbacks’ 3rd highest wicket-taker, with 278 scalps to his name.

The Sheffield Shield will not be overseeing one of Australia’s greatest swing-and-seam bowlers of the century as Chadd Sayers confirmed on Thursday that he is officially calling it a day from first-class cricket. Sayers, 33, is currently the highest wicket-taker for the Redbacks in the ongoing Shield season, with 12 scalps to his name, but South Australia’s wretched run of form across the past two seasons has seen the veteran take the selectors’ hint and officially step away from Shield cricket in order to let the club go in a different direction.

"There was no guarantee of my spot on the contract list next year," an emotional Sayers told a media conference in Adelaide today, reported cricket.com.au.

"The way the SACA are going we haven't won a lot of games in the past five or six years and we're struggling to bowl sides out at the moment.

"So they mentioned they were going to look elsewhere and whether or not that meant I was going to contract was another thing, but I wanted to go out on my own terms. I didn't want to get tapped on the shoulder and told 'you're done'."

A handy customer who not only can swing the ball both ways but also has the ability to nip the cherry off the seam, Sayers represented Australia in a solitary Test match in 2018, against South Africa, on the back of the infamous Sandpaper Gate fallout. The right-armer finished with match figures of 2/146 but managed to pocket the prized scalp of AB de Villiers as his first-ever Test wicket. 

"I think he (de Villiers) was world's best batsman at the time," he reminisced.

With 278 wickets at 25.82 apiece, Sayers is currently South Australia’s third-highest wicket-taker of all time. The veteran seamer will play his last first-class match against Victoria at the Junction Oval on April 3. 

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