South Africa’s unsung all rounder Andrew Hall has announced his decision to quit International Cricket fuming over his exclusion from the South African Squad for the Twenty20 World Championship. Hall along with Kallis has been a notable omission from the Twenty20 squad despite his game being tailor-made for the mini version of cricket. Hall has now been linked to the Indian Cricket League. He joins his former team mates Lance Klusener and Nicky Boje in the rebel league that has started to destroy both International and Domestic Cricket. Just a few days back, Pakistan’s Abdul Razzaq had announced his retirement from International Cricket.
Hall who has played 21 Tests and 88 ODIs is a versatile cricketer fitting in several roles for his side. He has the distinction of opening the batting, and then even coming down the order to bring up the rescue acts, bowling good seam-up, working up reverse swing and even keeping wickets when required! The 32-year-old has been in and out of the South African teams but he always put up a fight whenever given an opportunity. He had scored three fifties and a hundred with an average of 26.20 besides picking up 45 wickets in Test Cricket. Hall also has three fifties in ODIs along with 95 wickets proving himself to be a utility cricketer. He could have done a lot better than his figures suggest as he only got limited opportunities because of the presence of plenty of quality all-rounders for SA over the years.
Andrew Hall still has a contract with Cricket South Africa that ends only during the month of April. The authorities at Cricket South Africa clearly feel that it was a hasty decision from Hall to lose his contract half-way which would pay him good money even if he wasn’t picked in the national team. All is not well with the South African players with Kallis also feeling extremely upset over his omission from the Twenty20 World Championship. It is much more difficult for the omitted players to digest as they would be missing this grand tournament that is going to be played in their country.