Mark Lathwell, the former England batsman, has announced that he is leaving Somerset, a move which appeared to bring the curtain down on a career which promised much but failed to live up to expectations. Somerset said that Lathwell, 30, would not be taking up the last two years of a three-year contract which ends in September 2003. In a statement issued by the county, Lathwell said: "The club is over-staffed and I could not see a way forward of playing regular first-team cricket, which I found to be an increasing strain to play in anyway. Rather than sit out my contract it seemed to make sense to start thinking ahead about a career outside professional cricket."

Retirement at 30 seemed highly unlikely eight years when Lathwell was being hailed as the best young batsman in the country. He made his Test debut in 1993 as England, receiving yet another Ashes hiding from Australia, drafted him in for the third Test at Trent Bridge.

A natural, wristy player, he failed to make much of an impression there or in the next Test at Headingley, appearing overawed by the whole atmosphere of international cricket. Those were the only Tests he played, and Lathwell joined a long list of England cricketers who were quickly discarded soon after they had been first selected.

Apart from one successful county campaign in 1994, his form was never the same again. He struggled to hold down a place in the Somerset 1st XI even when fit, and his cause was not helped by injuries which saw him sidelined for most of the 1999 and 2000 campaigns.

In his two Tests Lathwell made 78 runs at 19.50, while in a ten-year first-class career he scored 8727 runs at 33.43, including 12 hundreds.

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