Lizelle Lee. Picture: Gallo Images
World cricket’s leading women’s ODI batter Lizelle Lee has revealed why she quit the Proteas midway through the team’s tour of England.
Lee announced her international retirement a few weeks ago, and following the one-off Test between South Africa and England.
She missed the ODI and T20 series’ and is also not in action in the Commonwealth Games.
Lee will, however, continue to play in the Hundred and Big Bash. She was named the ICC’s Women’s ODI Player of the Year for last year.
In the BBC podcast Stumped, and hosted by Alison Mitchell, Lee reveals her weight and failure to do a proper fitness test prior to the tour of England was at the heart of her decision to quit the Proteas.
“I’m fit to play. Skills-wise I can do the job,” says Lee. “I’ve made the fitness tests, but not the weight tests. As a woman it breaks me, that I weigh too much.”
Lee goes on to say she has always struggled with her weight, and never received any support from Cricket South Africa to help her keep her weight in the required zone.
“But, at the end of the day, it’s what you eat,” she says.
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