Munro announces retirement from international cricket

Colin Munro has officially announced his retirement from international cricket with over 120 appearances.

The white ball star has been plying his trade in overseas T20 leagues for the last few years. Munro’s last match for New Zealand was against India in 2020. 

An explosive T20 batter, he has many records to his name, including the fastest T20I 50 which came off just 14 balls against Sri Lanka in 2016.

Munro scored T20I runs and ODI runs for Aotearoa. He featured in the 2014 and 2016 T20I World Cups and the 2019 ODI World Cup. 

He only appeared in one test match for Aotearoa, that coming against South Africa on the 2012/13 tour. Debuts in the one day and the T20 format went on that tour for Munro with scores of 9 and 23 on those days respectively.

His three T20I centuries are still the most in the format for New Zealand, ahead of Finn Allen, Brendon McCullum, Glenn Phillips, and Martin Guptill who all have two each.

In the ODI format, Murno scored over 1200 runs and also holds the fifth-best career strikes rate in the format (104.69) for New Zealand with only Luke Ronchi, Corey Anderson, Rachin Ravindra, Colin de Grandhomme, and Lance Cairns ahead of him. 

Munro said that the biggest achievement of his cricketing career was playing for the Blackcaps and playing 123 times across all formats is something he is proud of.

He had hoped that he would be able to play for his country in recent years, but following the announcement of the T20 World Cup team he felt that this was the right time to bring this chapter to a close.

New Zealand cricket chief executive Scott Weenink said that Munro was one of the first players to embrace the aggressive, 360-style degree of batting and it changed the game heavily.

Weenink thanked Murno for his efforts and wished him well in his further pursuits, which will be playing franchise cricket around the world.

ODI Records:

5th Highest Career Strike Rate for New Zealand (104.69)

8th Highest Strike Rate in an innings for New Zealand (293.33)

T20I Records:

Most T20I 100s for New Zealand (3)

Highest Strike Rate in an innings for New Zealand (357.14)

2nd Most T20I Career Runs at Eden Park (421)

2nd Highest Career Strike Rate for New Zealand (156.44)

6th Most T20I Career Runs (1724)