Satterthwaite calls it quits

Amy Satterthwaite says New Zealand Cricket’s decision not to offer her a contract for the coming year came ‘‘out of the blue’’ and was ‘‘a bit of a shock’’.

The former White Ferns captain announced her retirement from the international game yesterday after being snubbed during the annual contracting process.

Team-mate Melie Kerr was among those to offer support, saying on social media it was ‘‘not the way her NZ Cricket career should have ended’’.

Satterthwaite said she had got the news a week ago during a meeting with NZ Cricket chief executive David White and high performance manager Bryan Stronach.

‘‘It was made pretty clear that I wasn’t getting a contract and was not really part of their immediate future plans.

‘‘Two or three years ago, I would’ve fought for my position in the team and tried to make a comeback, but with the stage that I’m at with my life at the moment, it felt like the right time to step away.’’

Satterthwaite will finish up having played 145 one-day internationals and 111 Twenty20 internationals for the White Ferns. She was captain for 25 of those matches, having taken the role on permanently in 2018 and 2019.

She said being dropped from the contract list did ‘‘sting a little bit’’ and that it felt ‘‘a little bit tough’’ to have been singled out, especially as she felt she had more to give to the national women’s cricket team.

Stronach said the decision to not contract Satterthwaite, who turns 36 in October, had been driven by a desire to make some longer-term investments in younger players.

He said the White Ferns’ recent results, including a failure to make the semifinals at the Women’s World Cup on home soil in March, had shown the team wasn’t where it needed to be.

‘‘We do think we’ve got an extremely exciting bunch of talent coming through our system now, which is a massive change for us and something that’s massively exciting.

‘‘We feel like the way forward is we’ve got to look slightly longer term, and we’ve got to invest in some of that great talent and give them the opportunities to get to where they potentially could get to.’’

The White Ferns are currently without a coach and have a Twenty20 tournament at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in July and a T20 World Cup in South Africa next February on the horizon.

Satterthwaite was on maternity leave during the last T20 World Cup in early 2020, but played in 12 of the White Ferns’ 13 matches since then, averaging 23.45 at a strike rate of 113.15, the best marks of the team’s regular batters.

She has also continued to be a top performer in domestic T20 competitions, including New Zealand’s Super Smash, but Stronach said she was not considered a firstchoice player in that format.

He added that he felt there were enough options out there for this decision to be made so close to two major events.

‘‘I do think we’ve got the depth now and we do have some talent coming through. We look at talent a lot wider than just the stats and the averages and things like that.’’

Satterthwaite’s retirement follows that of wicketkeeper Katey Martin, who announced the end of her playing career last week.

Unlike Martin, Satterthwaite intends to carry on playing at domestic level.