Patel retires after disapproved league ban

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• Published46 minutes ago
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Samit Patel, who has announced his retirement from domestic cricket, says he "probably wouldn't have played" in a disapproved T20 league earlier this year had he known it would result in a ban.

Former England all-rounder Patel, 41, and Australian bowler Peter Siddle are both unable to play in the T20 Blast this summer after competing in the World Legends Pro T20 League in Goa.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) says players cannot play domestic cricket for 12 months if they have participated in a "disapproved" league such as this.

As a result, Patel has retired from domestic cricket in England but says he will still be playing franchise cricket elsewhere in the world.

"I probably wouldn't have played it [the World Legends League]," Patel told BBC Sport's Strategic Timeout programme.

"There was a lot of uncertainty about whether we could play or not but we can't get past that now. It just brought this stuff forward for me."

Patel played 60 times for England between 2008 and 2015 and made 629 appearances for Nottinghamshire over 22 years.

He then joined Derbyshire on a two-year white-ball deal in 2024 and was out of contract when he left the club at the end of last year's T20 Blast, but said he would have liked "one more year" of domestic cricket if he had not been dealt the ban.

"I would have played this summer," he said. "I had some chats with some counties, we weren't quite at a contract signing but we were in talks, so probably would've got a last-minute deal somewhere."

Patel and Ravi Bopara, who also retired earlier this year, are the only two players to have featured in every year of the Blast since it began in 2003.

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Patel made his first-class and List A debuts for Nottinghamshire as a teenager in 2002, and was part of their County Championship-winning sides in 2005 and 2010.

He also won the One-Day Cup in 2013 when it was a 40-over tournament, and was instrumental in helping the Outlaws to double white-ball success in 2017, when he also earned the Professional Cricket Association's Most Valuable Player and the PCA Player of the Year awards.

Across all formats, Patel finished his Nottinghamshire career with more than 25,000 runs and took more than 800 wickets with his left-arm spin.

In his two years at Derbyshire, Patel scored 528 runs and took 33 wickets while he also represented Trent Rockets and Northern Superchargers in The Hundred.

Patel played six Tests, 36 ODIs and 18 T20s for England but fitness issues held him back from earning a regular place in the side.

He made his last England appearance in 2015, a Test match against Pakistan in Sharjah, and ended his career without playing a home Test.

Related topics

• England Men's Cricket Team
• Derbyshire
• Nottinghamshire
• County Cricket
• Cricket