'Feet up for a bit and on to the next challenge' - Behardien calls time on career

Farhaan Behardien, the 39-year-old South African batter, has retired after an 18-year career at the professional level, which included 59 ODI and 38 T20I appearances.

Behardien, who last played internationally in a T20I against Australia in November 2018, but was in action for Boland in the domestic circuit till earlier this month, said "feet up for a bit and onto the next challenge" in his retirement note on Twitter. He didn't, however, make it clear if he would continue to play certain formats, at least domestically.

Behardien made his first-class and List A debuts in October 2004. The first-class debut came for Western Province against Eastern Province with Behardien coming out as a lower-middle-order batter and opening the bowling with his medium pace. Over time, though, Behardien did more with the bat and didn't bowl as much.

He was first noticed in a big way in the 2011-12 South African domestic season when he averaged 45.66 in the one-day competition and 66.50 in the T20 version. He was named the South African T20 player of the year at the 2012 CSA awards, which helped him get into the national side.

Behardien had it tough in international cricket
The international debut came in a T20 game against India in Johannesburg in March that year, and he played his first World Cup - the T20I event - in Sri Lanka later that year. He made his ODI debut in January 2013, at home against New Zealand, and went on to be part of the South Africa set-up at two T20 and two ODI World Cups.

Overall, he tallied 1074 runs at an average of 30.68 and strike rate of 97.90 in ODIs and 518 runs at an average of 32.37 and strike rate of 128.21 in T20Is, with the riches in the middle order usually forcing him to bat low in the order and perform the finisher's role.

In January 2017, Behardien was named South Africa's T20I captain for a three-match series against Sri Lanka at home. This came on the back of strong performances for Titans in the domestic T20 tournament, where he finished as the third-highest run-scorer. The year before, he was part of Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) in the IPL, and he later also turned out for Edmonton Royals in the 2018 Global T20 Canada league.