Kate Cross is retiring at 34, eight months after England decided she was not part of the plan

Kate Cross announced on Friday that she will retire from professional cricket at the end of the 2026 season. She is 34, she played 102 times for England across the three formats and took 140 international wickets, and she is leaving eight months after the ECB decided she was not part of what it wanted to build.

Taunton, and the best day she had against India

Indian supporters of a certain vintage will remember 30 June 2021 without needing to be reminded. England and India were playing the second ODI at Taunton, India were 55 without loss in the 12th over, and Cross came on and had Smriti Mandhana with her fifth ball. She finished with 5 for 34, India were bowled out for 221, and England chased it down with five wickets in hand to take the series.

It was only the second five-wicket haul of her career. ESPNcricinfo later named it the women’s bowling performance of the year, and she took the match award. For a bowler whose reputation was built on accuracy rather than menace, it was the day the ledger balanced.

Perth, and the last Ashes England won in Australia

Her Test debut came at the WACA in Perth on 10 January 2014. She bowled 32 overs across the match and took 3 for 35 in each Australian innings for figures of 6 for 70, and England won by 61 runs. That was the tour on which England won the Ashes in Australia, and they have not won them there since.

She reached 100 ODI wickets in 2025, against West Indies, in her 100th ODI. Only eight players have taken 100 in the format for England. At her peak she was ranked second in the world among ODI bowlers.

The contract she lost, and the World Cup she watched

In December 2025, England named their central contracts for the following cycle and Cross was not on the list. She was the only player from the previous group to be left out, and the reasoning was not really disguised: a younger seam attack was being assembled for a home T20 World Cup. She had already been dropped during that summer’s ODI series against India.

Clare Connor spoke about years of extraordinary service and said the door to selection was never shut. Cross went back to Lancashire and played the season anyway. England hosted the World Cup this year and she was not in it, and the tournament ended with Australia beating them to a seventh title at Lord’s.

She won everything she has won in one summer

The strange part of the last two years is that Cross spent more than a decade in international cricket without a professional trophy and then collected three at once. In 2025 Lancashire took both the Vitality T20 County Cup and the Metro Bank One-Day Cup, and she won the Hundred with Northern Superchargers, taking 2 for 23 in a final Superchargers won by seven wickets in front of 22,542 people at Lord’s, a record crowd for the women’s competition. She took 15 wickets across that tournament.

She has 239 wickets for Lancashire across formats and made her senior debut for them as a teenager. In her statement she said retiring had not been an easy decision but that the timing felt right, and talked about the line running from junior cricket at Heywood to a Lancashire shirt and then an England one. Sarah Storey, who chairs the county, called her a Lancashire legend who set the standard for the players coming after her.

There is a season left. Lancashire’s domestic summer runs on, and Cross will bowl through the rest of it before putting the ball down.

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