Ellis pulls stumps on 18-year career

Canterbury cricket stalwart Andrew Ellis has retired after 18 domestic seasons.

The 37-year-old allrounder finishes as just the second player in New Zealand domestic cricket history to play over 100 games in each format.

Ellis played in 117 T20 matches, 109 List A matches and 105 first-class matches.

Ellis, a two-time winner of the men’s domestic player of the year title (2014-15 and 2016-17), finished his career for Canterbury with 8644 runs and 494 wickets across all three formats.

Ellis has spent the last eight months working part-time for High Performance Sport New Zealand as the regional manager in Christchurch and he hopes that will eventually mature into a fulltime role in the future.

A five-time Plunket Shield champion, Ellis restricted himself to white ball cricket over the last two seasons.

He won the Plunket Shield in his first year as captain of Canterbury in the 2016-17 season.

Ellis, who made his Canterbury debut in the 2002-03 season, played alongside now Black Caps coach Gary Stead and was later coached by him when Stead was in charge of the red and blacks.

‘‘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,’’ Stead said.

‘‘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.’’

Ellis played the first of his 15 one-day internationals for New Zealand in Dunedin against Zimbabwe in 2012, with his last coming the following year on tour in Sri Lanka.

During the same period, Ellis also played five Twenty20 internationals for New Zealand.

White Ferns coach Bob Carter, who played a major role in Ellis’ development when he was in charge of Canterbury, praised his dedication and desire to succeed.

‘‘Early on in his career Andrew showed signs of his determination to get the very best out of his ability as a genuine allrounder,’’ Carter said.

‘‘When Andrew was at the top of his game he was demanding and, in a positive way, a pain in the backside with his continuous questioning and pushing the boundaries to get better and better.

‘‘During my involvement with him he was always working hard on improving his skills and was the selfless team man who you could put into any situation to win or save games for Canterbury.’’

Regional Olympic officials yesterday rallied around the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and backed its stance on opening the Tokyo Games as scheduled, one day after direct criticism from athletes amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Leaders of continental Olympic groups praised the IOC after a conference call to update them on coronavirus issues four months before the opening ceremony in Tokyo on July 24.

‘‘We are living through an unpredictable crisis and as such, it is important that we have one policy, expressed by the IOC, and we follow that policy in unison,’’ the Italy-based European Olympic Committees said.

On Tuesday, one of the International Olympic Committee’s 100 members broke ranks in a rare public criticism of the body’s unwavering strategy.

‘‘I think the IOC insisting this will move ahead, with such conviction, is insensitive and irresponsible given the state of humanity,’’ said Hayley Wickenheiser, a four-time Olympic ice hockey gold medallist from