Kevin Pietersen will retire from all forms of cricket in 2018

Star English cricketer Kevin Pietersen has announced he will retire from all forms of cricket within a year.

Pietersen’s team Melbourne Stars lost their fourth straight game this season. The batsman was asked whether he would return to this club next summer as his current contract is going to expire at the end of this season to which he replied, “I won’t be playing next season,” he said. “I’m done.”

He played an innings of 40 runs off just 30 balls, in the match against the Renegades but ended up on the losing side. “I think everybody knows that you come to the end of your time and stuff so for me you get to that time in your career where you just think, ‘Do I want this?’

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“I want it desperately at the moment, but I don’t think I’ll want it in 10 months’ time.”

England’s fifth highest Test run scorer, Pietersen played his last Test in the Ashes whitewash four years ago, after which he was not considered for selection by the England Cricket Board.

Since his international career ended in 2014, Pietersen has taken part in various Twenty20 leagues in different parts of the world. He was the leading run-scorer for Melbourne Stars in each of his three seasons in the Big Bash League.

Pietersen is popularly known as the originator of the ‘Flamingo’ shot in cricket where he flicks deliveries from outside off-stump through mid-wicket. He was an Ashes hero for England, and arguably one of his country’s finest batsman in history.

Pietersen said he would honour playing commitments with the Pakistan Super League and in South Africa, but that would be it.

The South-Africa born Pietersen is also an active commentator in international cricket and said he would like to continue in that avenue.