Faf du Plessis retires from Test cricket, says 'My heart is clear and time is right' in retirement post

Former South Africa captain Faf du Plessis has announced his retirement from Test cricket on Wednesday. The 36-year-old played 69 Test matches for his country and scored over 4,000 runs in the format.

"My hear is clear and time is right to walk into a new chapter," he has written in his retirement post.

Faf du Plessis made his Test debut in November 2012 against Australia in Adelaide. His last match in the longest format of the game was against Pakistan in Rawalpindi. The right-hander registered scores of 10, 23, 17 and 5 in his last Test series.

Overall, the Pretoria-born cricketer scored 4,163 runs at an average of 40.02. He hit 10 hundreds and 21 fifties in his Test career which spanned a little over 8 years. His highest score of 199 came against Sri Lanka at Centurion in December 2020. He captain the South African Test side on 36 (won 18) occasions.

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In his retirement post Faf du Plessis said that he would like to focus more on the T20I format because of the two upcoming World Cups in India (2021) and Australia (2022). He stated that he would like to play in the format across the world to better prepare himself for the major ICC events. The Chennai Super Kings (CSK) star also made it clear that ODI cricket is still in his plans, adding that for the short-term T20 cricket was his priority.

Faf du Plessis was removed as the ODI team captain after South Africa's poor show in the World Cup 2019. Later in February 2020, he himself decided to step down as the Test and T20I captain of the team.

He led the Proteas in 39 ODIs and 40 T20Is, of which South Africa won 28 and 25 respectively.