Farhaan Behardien announces retirement from international cricket

South African batter Farhaan Behardien, has announced retirement from all forms of international cricket, which included 59 ODI and 28 T20I appearances. The 39 year old last played for South Africa in a T20I against Australia in November 2018, but was in action for Boland in the domestic circuit till earlier this month. Behardien never had it easy at the professional level. In a retirement note addressing the situation, the right handed batter wrote “feet up for a bit and onto the next challenge”. He however didn’t make it clear if he would continue to play certain formats, at least domestically. 

Behardien made his first class and List A debuts in October 2004. The first class debut came against Eastern Province with Beharadien coming out as a lower order batter for the Western Province. He made headlines in the 2011-12 South African domestic season where he averaged 45.66 in the One Day competition and a staggering 66.50 in the T20 format. His stellar run in the season earned him the honour of the South African T20 player of the year at the CSA awards, which eventually helped him to get into the national side. 

Behardien’s international cricket debut came in a T20I fixture against India in Johannesburg in March that year, and he competed in his first ever World Series. He later made his ODI debut in 2013 against New Zealand, and went on to be part of the South Africa setup at two T20I and two ODI World Series.

During his 18 year career, he tallied 1074 runs at a decent average of 30.68 and strike rate of 97.90 in ODIs and 518 runs in T20I at a strike rate of 128.21, with plenty of options in the middle order usually forcing him to bat low in the order and play the finisher’s role. 

Behardien was named Proteas skipper in T20Is for a three match series against Sri Lanka in 2017 at home. This came on the back of dominant performances for Titans in the domestic T20 tournament, where he finished as third leading run scorer.  The year before, he was a part of the Punjab franchise in the Indian T20 League and he later also represented the Royals in the 2018 Global T20 Canada League.