Veteran England bowler Katherine Brunt has announced her retirement from regional and county cricket.
Brunt will play The Hundred for Trent Rockets this summer but will not play for Northern Diamonds or Yorkshire.
“I don’t want to be opening the bowling for Yorkshire or the Diamonds when someone like Lizzie Scott is absolutely capable of doing it,” she said.
Brunt, 37, last played county cricket in 2019, when she made her 100th appearance for Yorkshire.
Brunt won the County Championship with Yorkshire in 2015 and will play for England in the T20 World Cup next month in South Africa.
She has only played eight times for Northern Diamonds across the first three years of regional cricket, sometimes as a batter rather than a bowler.
“I’ve played some games over the last few seasons, but it’s been two or three max per year,” she said. “That’s all the schedule has allowed. That goes for most of the players who play all three formats for England.
“I don’t want to take up someone’s place in the team. I wouldn’t think that’s fair when there’s so much good young talent in that Diamonds set-up.”
Brunt, who is England’s leading wicket-taker in ODIs and T20I internationals, retired from Test cricket last summer.
