“You always get told that you’ll know when things are coming to an end and in all honesty, I never really believed that,” Woodcock said in a statement. “But over the last six to nine months things have started to kick in around that final stage of my career and the decision not to play in the Ford Trophy this year was probably a sign it was time to call it a day,” he further added.
Bruce Edgar, the head coach of Firebirds said about Woodcock’s passion towards the game. “Woody’s impact on cricket in Wellington has been felt at local level all the way through to the Firebirds. He’s always been committed and passionate to play club cricket and be part of the community and he has represented our values strongly.”
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Woodcock’s teammate Jeetan Patel too expressed the efforts of Woodcock, “Woody’s such a huge presence in our changing room, he connects really well with the younger guys and has a good connection with the older guys and I don’t think you can ever fully replace a character like that.”
Woodcock made his debut in 2001 for Wellington at the age of 19 years but he represented New Zealand nine years later of his debut. The 36-year old played four One Day Internationals and three Twenty20 Internals for New Zealand from 2010 to 2011. He has four wickets in his name from seven international matches. Though he doesn’t have a glorious international career, he has a wonderful career in the domestic circuit.
Having made his debut in 2001, Woodcock scored 10,594 runs and took 339 wickets in 384 matches for Wellington across formats. He has become one of the important members of the team and also won the four-day State Championship in 2004, the Ford Trophy in 2014 and two T20 trophies in 2015 and 2017. He broke the record of playing most first-class games for one team by any player in New Zealand after playing his 128th first-class match for Wellington.
He will play his final game against Canterbury which will be starting on Sunday at the Basin Reserve.
