England and Surrey off-spinner Gareth Batty has drawn the curtains on a 24-year playing career. The 43-year-old, who retires at the end of the 2021 season, will continue to remain at Surrey as Assistant Coach, working alongside Director of Cricket Alec Stewart and Head Coach Vikram Solanki.Batty, who has also had stints at Worcestershire and Yorkshire, represented Surrey across two periods, between 1998-2001 and then again from 2009 until his retirement in 2021. He captained the club between 2015 and 2017 and filled-in as skipper of the T20 sides intermittently, including during the run to the finals of the T20 Blast last year.
"It's been a privilege to have played the professional game for more than 20 years. I never took a moment of it for granted and I know how fortunate I am to have represented the teams I have," Batty said."I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone that has been involved in a highly enjoyable career; teammates, coaches, family, friends and fans. I'm now excited to start a new career at this great club and looking forward to all the challenges and opportunities that will bring."In all he played 261 first class games, taking 682 wickets and scored 7399 runs. He further took 255 and 155 wickets each in the List A and T20 formats and is among a rare group of cricketers to have taken more than 1000 wickets and scored more than 10000 runs in professional representative cricket.
