Andrew Ellis has announced his retirement from all forms of cricket 18 years after making his debut in competitive cricket.

New Zealand all-rounder Andrew Ellis was only the second Kiwi cricketer after Todd Astle to play 100 games of all three formats of the game. He played 106 First-Class games, 133 List A games and 127 T20 matches in his career. He scored 8644 runs and picked up 494 wickets across three formats.

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Canterbury’s greatest all-rounder also represented the country in 15 ODIs and 5 T20Is in 2012 and 2013. He has played all his domestic cricket for Canterbury. He also won the ‘New Zealand’s domestic player of the year’ title twice.

Ellis has already begun his career as a regional manager of High-Performance Sport New Zealand and is willing to continue with it after retirement.

He was a contemporary of New Zealand coach Gary Stead, who said, “Elly will always stand out to me through his work ethic and desire to improve and better himself, especially early in his career when he would often be in hitting balls on the bowling machine at either end of the day. These out of sight and unseen practice hours built his resilience and technique for a very successful career across all formats.”

“Above all, Elly was keen to help other people get the best out of themselves and this is always a great legacy to leave - he was stubborn, committed and a very successful Canterbury man,” he added.

(With inputs from Cricbuzz)