Crawley to retire after this season

John Crawley, one of the most prolific batsmen in county cricket for nearly two decades, has become the latest former England player to announce his retirement in recent days and will end his career at the close of the season.

Crawley, 37, has been at Hampshire since 2002 having spent the first 12 years of his career at Lancashire. Before the current Championship match, against his former county, he had 24,328 first-class runs at 46.60 to go alongside 8681 runs in one-day cricket.

After scoring more than 10,000 runs for Lancashire he managed to transfer his skills to the spicy Rose Bowl surface and made his career-best score of 311 not out, against Nottinghamshire, on the ground in 2005.

"I have enjoyed a fantastic career at the top of the game for over 20 years, meeting some amazing people and collecting some incredible experiences along the way," Crawley said. "However, I have now realised that the time has come to close this particular chapter of my life and have decided to retire at the end of this season.

"I am particularly pleased to have been able to see out my career at such a fantastic club as Hampshire. The last thing I want to do is stand in the way of that talent. I would like to thank Rod [Bransgrove, the chairman], Giles [White, the coach] and the rest of the playing, coaching and support staff for all their fantastic support. Finally I would like to thank all the members and supporters who have followed me throughout my career."

Crawley struggled to replicate his consistent and heavy domestic scoring onto the Test arena and averaged 34.61 during a 37-match career after making his debut, prematurely, against South Africa in 1994. His top score of 156 not out came against Sri Lanka, at The Oval, in 1998 and his final Test was against Australia, at Sydney, in 2003.

He joins former England team-mates Mark Butcher and Andy Caddick in announcing their retirements in the last week.