Lizelle Lee: "I honestly felt that I had so much more to give"

It was while turning out for the second team at Marshfield Cricket Club, a village side just north of Bath, that Lizelle Lee realised last month just how much she had missed enjoying the game.

She played three times, initially as a favour to Lauren Shrubsole, sister of Anya, and thereafter quite simply because having fun made coming back for more worthwhile. Lee had just retired from international cricket in circumstances that have been well-documented over the last fortnight, an episode played out in public that left her emotionally drained and experiencing lows that no one – let alone a great of South African cricket who gave so much to her country – ought to go through.

"I needed it without knowing I needed it," she tells The Cricketer, reflecting on her brief time as a gun-for-hire ringer in the south Cotswolds, where her debut featured 94 runs in 60 balls and three rare wickets. "Not only the cricket, but the people. It was so much fun on the field."

She followed that short stint with a training session at Lancashire ahead of a Hundred campaign that has taken on greater significance now that domestic competitions will represent Lee's bread and butter. She will return to the Women's Big Bash this winter, with Hobart Hurricanes.

But none of this is about plotting a future as a franchise traveller – "if I don't have a good Hundred," she points out, "I don't even know if they'll take me back" – and in an ideal world Lee would be approaching the next month on the back of her Commonwealth Games debut and six white-ball matches against England, inching towards the significant landmark of 200 international appearances.

Instead, she has called time on that stage of her career, declaring on 184 – against her will, but not her better judgement.

"It's not a financial security thing at all – it was never about the money," she says, explaining the series of events that led to her ending a decadelong association with the Proteas only a matter of months after a semi-final defeat at the World Cup evoked a sense of optimism around the future.

^{Lizelle Lee is representing Manchester Originals in The Hundred (George Wood/Getty Images)}

Speaking on the BBC's Stumped podcast, Lee revealed she did not meet Cricket South Africa's fitness requirements ahead of her side's tour against England, an issue with its roots in her decision to undertake her pre-tour fitness checks at home in Ermelo, Mpumalanga, rather than at CSA's headquarters in Johannesburg, citing the cost of petrol money for the six-hour round trip: she weighed herself before visiting a biokineticist for her skinfold measurement.

Upon arriving in England, she was retested and found that her skinfolds were down but not her weight. The national governing body's response was to revoke her selection eligibility and deny her the necessary no-objection certificate to take part in The Hundred and other competitions until her fitness was deemed to have improved. That she didn't immediately fly home was an economic decision.

Her sudden retirement followed between the one-off Test and the ODI leg of a multiformat series won at a canter by England, with rumours and inaccuracies around the subject – "people that know me know that's not me" – leading to Lee's decision "to get my story out and tell the truth".

For that, she is grateful to Alison Mitchell, who allowed her to use Stumped to open up: "I didn't say anything bad about anyone – the truth coming out actually makes me look bad because of the weight thing. It's actually all on me, and it's my own fault that all of this happened."

There are no winners here, only a wide-ranging disappointment – from the fact that one of the most destructive players in the women's game has felt the need to step away from international cricket to the fact that something as personal as an individual's weight is so overtly central to this episode.

"As a woman, that breaks me," she told the podcast, addressing the lack of support she received from Cricket South Africa around weight management. "It's one of the toughest things to hear: you can't play because you weigh too much. I would sit in my bed crying; I've been struggling with this for so long. I don't feel good about myself, I don't look at myself in the mirror anymore. I know it's what you put in your body, and you have to train but it's not always that easy. Emotionally, it breaks a person down."

^{Lee was named as Wisden's Leading Woman Cricketer in the World for 2021 (Charlie Crowhurst/Getty Images)}

That pain hasn't abated, even if Lee is looking forward to returning to competitive cricket with Manchester Originals, a year on from playing in the tournament curtain-raiser at the Kia Oval that set the tone for the success of the women's competition.

"The past few weeks have been really tough," she admits. "I never meant to do that in the middle of a tour, but that's how it turned out. I just couldn't do it anymore. It is what it is.

"I actually feel like I've let the team down. I felt I let them down in terms of doing it midtour. I would have loved to have maybe finished the tour and then maybe retired.

"It was a big shock for me and for some of my friends in the team. It was tough watching them on TV and it was tough going to the games. It's one of those things – I don't regret retiring, but I do regret when it happened and how it happened. That's basically it."

She watched from the stands at Bristol as South Africa toiled in the heat during the second of three ODI defeats, given her ticket by Marizanne Kapp, a long-time teammate who openly expressed her heartbreak at the departure of a fellow member of South Africa's golden generation, and dipped her toe into the world of radio commentary before the end of the series.

"There are so many other things going on in the environment that need to get sorted out," Lee adds. "At this moment, I hope those things get sorted out for the people who are still there. I'm happy that it's over actually.

"I did that interview, said what I wanted to say and have put it behind me. I have to go forward and look forward; I have a young family and we're starting a new adventure. I'm just happy about how things are turning out at the moment."

She remains cryptic about quite what that entails, but they are sufficiently big plans for herself, wife Tanja and recent arrival Wihan to ensure that the possibility of unretiring wouldn't be feasible, even if the "many things that need to change" within the South African camp were to be resolved.

^{Deandra Dottin has retired from international cricket since Lee ended her own career (Fiona Goodall/Getty Images)}

"I honestly felt that I had so much more to give," she says. "Yes, there was the NOC and the environment – but it's just about people being treated fairly: if something happens to me which is all fair and well, I'd expect the same thing to happen to the next person. I just feel like I've always been the one who's been made an example of, and then when it happens to the next person it doesn't matter.

"That goes back to not making the fitness test or requirements for certain things. This isn't the first time it's happened to me; previously, it was actually the running which I didn't make and failed. A few months later, it happened to the next person, but they were picked for the team and I wasn't. Then, I got my fitness fine – so I made the fitness but not the weight – and got dropped again. Fair enough, it's in the contract so it's fine. But then it happens to the next person and it's fine. So, it's just not being treated fairly."

Lee highlights the example of Deandra Dottin, another world-leading player leaving the international stage and signing off with a statement that questioned a team environment that "has undermined my ability to perform excellently". She interrupts the question to emphasise her "shock" at Dottin's news but also to stress the prevalence of those internal issues and the importance of satisfactorily stamping them out. It is too simplistic, she insists, to point the finger at the impact of a growing franchise circus, which this time next year ought to include an Indian Premier League, as well as the Caribbean Premier League that is set to launch later this month.

"The reason for her retirement is not to play in all those other leagues," says Lee. "There are other things going on, and she mentioned the environment and those sorts of things. That's her reason for retiring, and those are things that need to be sorted out. You can't have players retiring because of things like that.

"People should retire because they want to retire and they think it's time to retire. Yes, we have all these leagues as a back-up – but the thing with those leagues is that if you don't do well, that's not to say you're going to come back the next year. There's no financial security with that. Teams, especially in the women's game, need to sort certain things out. Hopefully, the sooner the better."

KP Snacks, Official Team Partner of The Hundred, are touring the country this summer to offer more opportunities for people to play cricket as part of their ‘Everyone In’ campaign. Visit everyonein.co.uk/about

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