England's most successful wicket-keeper in test after Alan Knott, Matt Prior, is retiring from all forms Cricket after losing battles to the Achilles injury he picked up last year and forced him to sit out during the last phase of Indian series in 2014.
Prior's career started with a sparkling century on debut against West Indies in 2007. The journey began and Prior was rated as one of the best wicket-keeper batsmen in test matches. In all he accumulated 4099 test runs for England at an average of 40 runs per innings with 7 test centuries and behind the wickets he was also a consistent performer; he ends his career as England's second most successful wicket-keeper with 256 dismissals to his name.
Prior's strike rate in test was above 60; as many times he helped England to get some quick runs down the order when it needed. He also played some resilient knocks to save England form defeats. Just as in his last test century against New Zealand in 2013, he saved the day for England as he was standing between the victory and New Zealand - they just needed one wicket to win but Prior's effort didn't allow them to do so.
With his aggressive approach in test it seems obvious that he would get success in shorter formats of the game too but it didn't happen as he only featured in 68 oDI's in his 7 year career and last of those he played against Sri Lanka in quarter finals of the World Cup 2011.
In his 62 attempts to the batting crease during his ODI stint he scored just above 1200 runs with only 3 fifties and best of 87 runs. He was also not very impressive in T20's as he only featured in 10 T20 for English team.
His major career highlights were to keep wickets in three victorious Ashes campaigns for England and also performing well with the bat during those series; he was named in ICC's test team of the year in 2012.
He was the part of the side when England rose to #1 position in test cricket. He was also named wisden cricketer of the year in 2010 and holds the record for the most dismissals in an ashes series by English wicket-keeper when he helped England bowler 23 times to dismiss Australian batsmen during the 2009 series.
He was also a terrific performer for his county success as he scored close to 13000 runs with 28 centuries including a double ton (201 not out); he also achieve feat of dismissing 683 batsmen with his clean keeping abilities.
In all he has a satisfying career achieving many heights but if he could play for three or four years more he could've ended up as England's finest wicket-keeper as he only needed 13 more dismissals to equal Allan Knott record of 269.