Former South African Test opener Jacques Rudolph will retire from all forms of cricket at the end of the 2017 English season. The 36-year old has stepped down as four-day captain for Glamorgan with immediate effect, but will continue leading the T20 side until his retirement.
"The time feels right to call an end to my playing career," Rudolph said. "I have been incredibly fortunate to have enjoyed playing the game I love for the last 20 years. But at the end of this summer it will be time to focus on a new venture away from cricket and spend more time with my young family."
Rudolph, a product of the famed Afrikaans Hoer Seunskool, made his first-class debut twenty seasons ago in the 1997-98 summer. He played 48 Tests in two stints - the first 35 came between 2003 and 2006 and the remaining 13 between 2011 and 2012 - because he had signed a Kolpak deal with Yorkshire in 2007.
By scoring 1000 runs or more in his first four seasons with the county, Rudolph found his way back into the South African team. But his second coming yielded only one Test century and he was dropped in November 2012. Rudolph then turned his attention to playing franchise cricket for the Titans and eventually called time on his South Africa career after the 2015-16 season.
Rudolph has been with Glamorgan since 2014 and has captained them for the last two seasons. In 2017, he scored 319 runs in five first-class matches at 35.44 and 305 runs in eight one-day matches at 38.12. The T20 competition he will lead Glamorgan in begins on July 7. While Rudolph has not detailed what life after cricket holds, he has interest in a game farm with fellow South African batsman Boeta Dippenaar.
With Rudolph standing down, Glamorgan have given the Championship captaincy to their 35-year-old Australian seamer Michael Hogan until the end of the season.