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Andre Russell announces international retirement months before T20 World Cup 2026
West Indies all-rounder Andre Russell will be retiring from international cricket, with the opening two games of the five-match T20I series against Australia at home set to be his last games for the Windies, reported ESPNCricinfo on Wednesday.
Russell, 37, has been included in the squad for the five-match series, and the first two matches, taking place at his home ground of Sabina Park in Jamaica, will serve as his farewell to international cricket.
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Since 2019, Russell has been an exclusively T20I player for his country. He has played 84 T20Is for WI, scoring 1,078 runs at an average of 22.00, with a strike rate of 163.08, with three half-centuries and a best score of 71. He has also taken 61 wickets at an average of 30.59, with best figures of 3/19.
Andre Russell retires months before T20 World CUp
His retirement comes just seven months before the next ICC T20 World Cup to be hosted by India and Sri Lanka in February 2026. Russell is the West Indies' second high-profile retirement in recent times, with their batter Nicholas Pooran having bid goodbye to international cricket recently at the age of 29.
Russell has only played one Test for WI, while he has also played 56 ODIs, scoring 1,034 runs at an average of 27.21, with a strike rate of over 130, four half-centuries and a best score of 92*. In ODIs, he has 70 wickets at an average of 31.84, with best bowling figures of 4/35.
The 37-year-old was part of the West Indies teams that won the ICC T20 World Cups in 2012 and 2016.
Russell has played a massive part in several T20 leagues, scoring 9,316 runs in 561 matches at an average of 26.39, with strike rate of over 168. His resume includes two centuries and 33 fifties, with a best score of 121*. As a bowler, he has taken 485 wickets at an average of 25.85, with best figures of 5/15.
He recently featured in the Major Cricket League (MLC) in the USA for Los Angeles Knight Riders (LAKR), scoring 126 runs in nine matches and eight innings at an average of 25.20, with best score of 65*, his solitary half-century. He also took 10 wickets at an average of 32.90, with best figures of 3/30. His team failed to make it to the playoffs, finishing at the bottom of the table.
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West Indies squad for T20Is against Australia:
Shai Hope (capt), Jewel Andrew, Jediah Blades, Roston Chase, Matthew Forde, Shimron Hetmyer, Jason Holder, Akeal Hosein, Alzarri Joseph, Brandon King, Evin Lewis, Gudakesh Motie, Rovman Powell, Andre Russell, Sherfane Rutherford, Romario Shepherd.
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A decade later, Douglas Jardine summoned him to attend a camp for the Bodyline series. But he picked up an injury and shortly returned to Argentina with a healthy haul of 249 wickets at 28, to look after the wild sprawling ranches. After a dispute over his brewery, the first lady commissioned two sets of hitmen to kill him. He had fled to the family's northernmost ranch. They never returned, assumed dead and Gibson lived till he was 76, making occasional visits to his son in England. Cricket, by then, was confined to the few English families that still lived in the country and survived as a relic of the era of British planters. Argentina still plays cricket and in an expanded T20 World Cup format the ICC is envisioning could one day qualify. But on the whims and vendettas of leaders and dictators hinged the fate of sports. Perhaps, cricket would not have thrived in Latin America or Italy or the Netherlands. Perhaps, the English did not stay long enough. Even if they were, cricket was never the sport of masses, confined to the gentry clubs, in all these countries. Football was the masses' opium in the barrios and favellas. The game did flourish in the nitrate mining communities of Atacama Desert in Chile as well as Mexico, Uruguay and Panama (where West Indies great George Headley was born). Maybe, cricket could not capture the local rhythms as football did, or captured its sensibilities. Or you could imagine, the subcontinent's sport of choice if the English had not lingered too long. Or if it were the Portuguese or the Dutch or the Spaniard. Perhaps it still could have been cricket. But Italy qualifying for the T20 World Cup makes you dwell on conjectures. What if Mussolini and Peron encouraged cricket? Or the princes of India's states patronised football? History of sports is thus the history of empires and emperors too.
