Former England allrounder, Samit Patel, has announced his retirement from county cricket, days after he was banned from English domestic competitions for participating in an unsanctioned T20 league.
Patel, who played 60 times for England between 2008 and 2015, played for Nottinghamshire for 22 years before signing a two-year white-ball only deal with Derbyshire in 2024. He didn't have a contract for the upcoming Blast season, but had signalled his intent to play county cricket for "one more year".
However, Patel – along with former Australia seamer Peter Siddle – have both been barred from county cricket after playing in the unsanctioned World Legends Pro T20 League earlier this year in Goa. The league is not officially sanctioned by the ICC, and boards are encouraged to suspend players from domestic leagues if they participate in such competitions. While not all boards follow that policy, the ECB does, and as a result, Patel will be ineligible to play cricket in England this summer.
Speaking to BBC Sport's Strategic Timeout, Patel said if he had known of the possibility of a ban he "probably wouldn't have played it [World Legends Pro League]."
"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."
"I would have played this summer. 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."
Before this year, Patel had played in every edition of the T20 Blast since it was first established in 2003. He scored 213 runs for Derbyshire in last year's competition, as well as taking 13 wickets. He also played for Northern Superchargers in The Hundred.
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