Gough to retire at end of season

Yorkshire captain Darren Gough has confirmed that he will retire at the end of the season.

"I think I've had a good innings. It's time to call it a day," said the 37-year-old former England fast bowler.

"Although Yorkshire asked me if I would stay for another year, I thought the time was right for me to call it a day at the end of September."

Gough, who made his first-class debut in 1989, played 58 Tests and 159 one-day internationals for England.

Gough returned to Yorkshire as captain last year after three seasons with Essex. In his two spells at Headingley, he has taken 444 wickets, and also scored 2,774 runs.

He was still in two minds about whether this season would be his last as recently as six weeks ago.

"If my passion at the end of the season is like it is now, I may change my mind. I think it's just a case of wait and see if I am being totally honest," he told BBC Leeds.

"I've just got to see how this season goes. I love playing cricket, I love what I do.

"At some point I have to say 'not anymore' but, if Yorkshire have a good season and so do I, then you never know."

But the emergence of talented youngsters like Ben Sanderson and Oliver Hannon-Dalby, who have both played for the first team recently, has helped persuade Gough that the time will be right for him to go at the end of the summer.

With a history of knee problems behind him, Gough admitted he was finding it harder to play four-day Championship cricket.

"When Hoggy [Matthew Hoggard] gets back from his broken thumb it will make selection a little bit easier, but at the moment we are short of experienced bowlers," he said.

"We have brought in two young pacemen over the past fortnight and there is plenty of talent at the club, but our youngsters are not yet quite ready for regular cricket."

Gough achieved celebrity status off the field when he won the BBC's Celebrity Come Dancing competition in 2005, but insisted his decision to quit was "nothing to do with the entertainment business".

He added: "I will still enjoy playing the game and will probably turn out for a pub team or something like that."

Former Yorkshire captain Geoff Boycott paid tribute to Gough's contribution to the club.

"He's done a brilliant job - he's lifted the place with his enthusiasm, his smile; the team had a great year last year, good spirit in the dressing room, which is what we wanted, we wanted to turn it round and get people enjoying the game," Boycott told BBC Five Live.

"It's just a fact that unfortunately we got him at the end of his career. If he could do two years, which he decided to do at the end of last year, we were happy with that."