White calls time on 20-year playing career

Former Australia captain Cameron White has called time on a professional career that has spanned almost 20 years.

White, who played four Tests and skippered Australia seven times in one-day and T20 matches, has conceded his time is up after playing just six games for the Adelaide Strikers last summer.

Having turned 37 earlier this week, White will continue to play at Premier Cricket level as captain of Melbourne Cricket Club while he is eager to try his hand at coaching.

"I've definitely finished up playing, that's for sure," he told cricket.com.au.

"I had a one-year playing contract with the Strikers. I only played a handful of games with them last year and in those games I would have needed to play really well to get another deal.

"To be totally honest, I'm pretty content. I think my time is definitely up, I've had enough from a playing point of view and I'm ready to focus on coaching."

White is hopeful of finding an assistant role with a KFC BBL club but said he has not put his name forward to take over the vacant head coaching job with Victoria.

It is a low-key exit for the allrounder, who ends his career as one of the most prolific domestic players of the century as well as being rated one of the most tactically astute Australian players in recent times.

In all, White claimed 10 domestic titles; six Sheffield Shields, a domestic one-day crown, two wins in the old state-based T20 league and a BBL trophy.

He finished as Victoria's fifth all-time leading first-class run-scorer. Only two players have captained more Sheffield Shield games than White's 77, while he was five catches away from Jamie Siddons' all-time record of 189.

From Bairnsdale in Victoria’s east, White was just 17 and still in school when he took four wickets on first-class debut in 2001, earning rave reviews from fellow Victorian leg-spinner Shane Warne the following season after the pair combined for 10 wickets in a match against Tasmania.

"He's got a big future," said Warne at the time. "He's a pretty switched-on kid, he knows exactly what he's doing, he knows how to bowl."

The raps on him grew when he was appointed Victoria's youngest ever captain in 2003, having the previous year led Australia's Under-19 World Cup team to the title in New Zealand and hitting the most runs in the tournament.

After a false start to his international career when the 2004 Test tour of Zimbabwe was cancelled, White made his Australian debut during the 2005 World XI Super Series. He eventually became a mainstay of the 50-over side between 2007 and 2011, hitting two ODI tons and filling in as captain for Michael Clarke on one occasion in 2011.

In the Test arena, Australian selectors turned to White to play as a specialist bowler for four Tests in India on a 2008 tour as they searched desperately for Warne’s long-term replacement.

White took five wickets and was promptly discarded, joining the ranks of over a dozen others who were tried as the legendary spin bowler’s successor only to suffer a similar fate. His 22 first-class centuries and an average just under 40 were not enough to win him a shot at Test level with what would become his dominant skill.

The arrival of T20 cricket nonetheless coincided nicely with White's growing reputation as a limited-overs batsman, featuring in Australia's only appearance of the final of a men’s T20 World Cup in 2010 and briefly taking over as T20 captain in 2011.

After four years with the Melbourne Stars, three as captain, he extracted a measure of revenge after the club let him go when he helped the Melbourne Renegades defeat their cross-town rivals in the BBL08 final.

He finished his first-class career on a high with Victoria when he helped them claim the 2018-19 Shield title and is now helping the state's next generation of talent.

With Melbourne in the grips of strict COVID-19 lockdown rules, White is currently mentoring Victoria's Under-19 prospects via Zoom.

"I'm just keen to get involved in it (coaching) and give it a go," he said. "I don't know if I'll be any good at it.

"I've enjoyed the bits and pieces I've done so far. Part of my role with the Strikers last year involved coaching.

"Over my playing years, a lot of those as captain, I played that role of a coach a bit as well so hopefully I can enjoy it and be half decent at it."