Cricket: Cairns walks now to avoid regrets later

A thoughtful Chris Cairns during his press conference to announce his retirement.

New Zealand's once-proud stock of all-rounders suffered yet another major setback yesterday when veteran Chris Cairns announced his intention to retire from all international cricket.
Cairns, 35, pulled the plug on his test career at the end of the 2004 series in England, and will draw the curtain on his one-day career after next month's Twenty20 contest against the West Indies in Auckland.

The long-serving international has plans to play some league cricket in England over the winter months while pursuing business opportunities, but otherwise has no thoughts of prolonging or returning to his playing commitments.

Just 14 months out from the World Cup, his retirement is poised to reverberate through the New Zealand one-day operation, which for years has been well served by a cluster of well-performed all-rounders and utility players.

Jacob Oram has proved injury-prone and is at present unable to bowl, Scott Styris has damaged his knee and has also been banished from the bowling crease, and even part-time bowler Nathan Astle is in doubt after being dropped from the squad this month.

Cairns, who has struggled with the ball in particular since being recalled for last month's Chappell-Hadlee series, yesterday rejected suggestions that he'd jumped before he was pushed, saying it was important that he bowed out of the game on his own terms.

"It was the right time," he said yesterday. "It was important to me that I left at a time when I still loved the game and was thinking about it positively. I've heard terrible stories about people becoming very bitter and leaving with axes to grind, and I certainly didn't want to go out like that.

"I evaluated my position at the end of the Sri Lankan series, talked with [partner] Carin about the options, and I guess started realising that the highs that I used to get from the game were now coming from other areas of my life.

"After so long, I'm a bit sad that I'm leaving but I'm also very excited about what lies ahead, particularly in terms of my family and business."

Undoubtedly New Zealand's most balanced all-rounder, Cairns played 215 ODIs, taking 201 wickets at 32.80 and was just 50 runs short of reaching 5000 runs, a double so far achieved only by Sanath Jayasuriya and Jacques Kallis.

Cairns was also a giant in the test arena, his effort in surpassing 3000 runs and 200 wickets ranking him alongside Sir Garfield Sobers, Kapil Dev, Imran Khan, Ian Botham, Sir Richard Hadlee and Shaun Pollock.

However, his withdrawal from the one-day scene could yet become a major headache for the selectors, who have each of their much-vaunted all-rounders either unavailable in one discipline, or unavailable altogether.

It might be too early to cast doubts over the impact on New Zealand's World Cup chances, but it will certainly mean some interesting headaches for John Bracewell.

Cairns said he felt he was departing at a time when New Zealand had plenty of time to adjust to his absence, and at a stage when he felt the national team was growing as an ODI threat, and as a World Cup prospect.

"I'm confident that the guys we've got can win the World Cup for the first time," he said.

"They're an exciting combination, they showed that during the Chappell-Hadlee series and I'm sure they can go all the way in 2007."

When it came to his favourite career memories, Cairns singled out New Zealand's first test win at Lord's in 1999, the Champions Trophy title win in Kenya the following year, and the drawn test series in Australia in 2001.

But he said he didn't regret a thing about his sometimes tempestuous younger days, or the horror season in 1995-96 when he walked out of the West Indian tour after a very public slanging match with Glenn Turner.

"No regrets, but you have to understand that people change. The person I was then, and the person I am now; well, let's just say we wouldn't recognise each other."