Cricket round-up: Simon Katich calls it quits on his playing career

Simon Katich of Australia retired from the Twenty20 format on Saturday. Ian Kington / AFP

Former Australia Test opener Simon Katich brought the curtain down on his career by retiring from the Twenty20 format on Saturday.

The left-hander, who scored 4,188 runs in 56 Tests with 10 hundreds, had retired from Australian first class cricket after a row with the country’s board following his dumping from the national side.

Katich, who turns 39 next month, had continued playing English county cricket until 2013 and captained Perth Scorchers to the Big Bash League title (BBL) last season.

“It’s always difficult when it comes to making these sorts of decisions,” Katich said. “I’ve obviously been in a similar situation when I made the decision to retire from first-class cricket in Australia a few years ago.

“Having been through that before, it helped me understand the process a bit better and the more I thought about it, I felt the time was right.

“I have a young family, I’ve had a great run and for my last game at the WACA, my home ground, to finish with a win in a successful (BBL) campaign, it’s the stuff you dream of.

“I’ll finish on a high and that was a big part of the reason I decided to pull up stumps.”

Sri Lanka off-spinner Senanayake banned for ‘illegal bowling action’

Sri Lanka’s off-spinner Sachithra Senanayake has been banned from international cricket with immediate effect after his bowling action during a match against England proved illegal, it was announced Saturday.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) which investigated a complaint following Sri Lanka’s victory over England at the Lords in May concluded that he used a “an illegal bowling action,” Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) said in a statement.

Senanayake, 29, who twice recorded career-best figures in the Royal London series, was reported by umpires Ian Gould and Marais Erasmus during a ODI series that Sri Lanka won.

“The Standard ICC Illegal Action Testing Protocol was used to assess the degree of elbow extension from the point of upper arm horizontal to ball release within the bowling action,” SLC said. “The 15-degree elbow extension threshold was exceeded.”

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