Stuart Williams announces retirement

Former West Indies opener Stuart Williams has announced his intentions to retire from First Class cricket during or at the completion of the current season. Williams, the highest scorer in the history of West Indies domestic cricket, stated that he no longer has the motivation to continue.

At 35 years of age, Williams has had a good career, despite not finding any significant success on the international stage. Over 16 seasons of cricket, he has amassed 8908 First Class runs (40.49 average) and 3639 List-A runs (31.10 average). In regional matches Stuart Williams has scored 5,911 runs at an average nearing 50. His 25 FC hundreds and 33 fifties represents an outstanding conversion rate.

In 31 Tests, Williams never found consistency and finished with an average of 24.14 after his most recent comeback attempt against India in 2002. His lone hundred (128) also came against India five years earlier. Interestingly, Stuart Williams scored his lone One Day International hundred (105 not out) against India. Overall he scored 1586 ODI runs at 32.36 per innings.

On Test debut Williams witnessed Brian Lara's first world record in 1994, but scored just 2 and 21 not out. In One Day Internationals he made a brighter start, scoring 61 off 83 balls amidst a 132-run opening stand with Phil Simmons.

Stuart Williams goes down as one of the finest batsmen the regional game has seen. Even toward the end of his career he has been a true force for the Leeward Islands, most recently scoring a magnificent 142 against Guyana this season. Attacking and fluent strokeplay epitomizes Stuart Williams in full flow.

Posted by Liam