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Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
ONE of Zimbabwe’s longest serving cricketers, Hamilton Masakadza has announced his retirement from the game, with the Twenty20 International Tri-series in Bangladesh this month to be his last involvement with the sport as a player.
Masakadza, who made his debut for Zimbabwe in 2001 made known that he was retiring from cricket on Tuesday. The 36-year old will lead the Chevrons in the T20Is against Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
A century on debut against West Indies at Harare Sports Club in July 2001 saw Masakadza become the youngest batsmen to notch up a hundred in his first ever Test. He was 17 years and 254 days old at that time when he scored that 119 batting at number three.
In total, Masakadza has appeared in 309 international matches for Zimbabwe that is 38 Tests, 309 One Day Internationals and 62 T20Is. He has compiled 2223 runs in Tests, 5658 in ODIs and 1529 in T20Is.
Masakadza is the fourth highest run scorer in ODIs for Zimbabwe after the Flower brothers, Andy and Grant as well as Brendan Taylor.
Masakadza was re-appointed Chevrons captain in February this year, having held the position since June last year when he took over from Graeme Cremer. He had also been named captain in January 2016 before he lost the captaincy at the same time when then coach Davenell Whatmore was shown the exit door a few months later.
While Masakadza had been viewed as more of a Test and ODI batsman, he showed his aggressiveness when he slammed an unbeaten 162 runs in a domestic Twenty20 fixture for Mountaineers against Mashonaland Eagles in Bulawayo. That score puts him third on the list of those with the highest individual total with only Chris Gayle (175*) and Australian Aaron Finch (172) better than him.
Hazratullah Zazai of Afghanistan shares third spot with Masakadza having also scored 162 not out.
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Bongani Ndlovu