Knee problems force Alex Wharf to retire

Former England one-day allrounder Alex Wharf has announced his retirement at the age of 34 after failing to overcome a long-standing knee injury.

Wharf, a medium-pace bowler and lower middle-order batsman, started out at Yorkshire before moving to Nottinghamshire and then Glamorgan, making the first of his 13 ODI appearances in 2004, and winning the Man-of-the-Match award for his 3 for 30 on debut against India. He played in the ICC Champions Trophy final against West Indies before toured Zimbabwe and South Africa that winter, but soon faded from the scene.

"It's always disappointing when long and distinguished careers prematurely come to an end through injury but Alex can be very proud of all that he has achieved particularly here at Glamorgan where he has been a consistent player over the last ten years," Matthew Maynard, Glamorgan's director of cricket, said.

"It's hard to retire from a sport that you love and has been your life for such a long period," Wharf admitted. "However, my on-going knee problem has led me to make the difficult decision of early retirement."

He scored 19 runs and took 18 wickets for England, while in 121 first-class appearances he made 3570 runs at 23.03 and took 293 wickets at 37.34. In List A games he scored 1711 runs and took 192 wickets.