Australian veteran Dan Christian has teared up after playing his last game of professional cricket.
The all-rounder announced midway through the Big Bash season this campaign with the Sydney Sixers would be his last.
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Christian would have been hoping for a fairytale finish to his career by winning another BBL title, but it wasn’t to be as the Brisbane Heat knocked the Sixers out of the BBL finals.
In a low-scoring game, the Sixers only managed 116 from 20 overs, which the Heat chased down with 10 balls to spare.
The Sixers were favoured to make the grand final but in the absence of Steve Smith, their topscorer was his replacement Daniel Hughes (23 off 24 balls).
Brisbane’s Michael Neser took two wickets and struck 48 off 32 balls to steer the Heat to a four-wicket win and progress through to Saturday night’s grand final against the Perth Scorchers.
Speaking to NSW fast bowler Trent Copeland after his last ever game, Christian became emotional when reflecting on his career and retiring from cricket.
“I suppose it’s still a little raw now that we’ve lost that game — we were looking forward to playing as well as we could and winning that and going back and trying to have another crack at the Scorchers and trying to win that title,” Christian said on Channel 7.
“I have thought about retiring over the last couple of months or so. It’s been a pretty good run.
“The main thing is being able to catch up with people and say I haven’t got cricket on.
“I’m going to be able to catch up with family and friends and go to weddings and birthdays all those things I have missed out on for the last 20-odd years.
“I suppose I’m going to have a couple of months now … or the rest of my life, really, to reflect on my career.”
The 39-year-old has long been one of Australia’s best T20 exports and won a remarkable nine titles in various T20 competitions around the world.
During his career, Christian played 409 T20s, scoring nearly 6000 runs and taking almost 300 wickets.
The Brisbane Heat will play the Perth Scorchers in the BBL grand final on Saturday at 7.30pm (AEDT).
