England women's captain Charlotte Edwards has announced her retirement from international cricket with immediate effect, the England and Wales Cricket Board has announced on its official website. 

The 36-year-old batsman made her international debut as a 16-year-old in 1996, and over the following two decades has made more international appearances than any other female cricketer in history, amassing 23 Test Match caps, 191 ODI caps and 95 T20I caps.

With 5,992 runs Edwatds is the all-time leading ODI run-scorer in women’s cricket, and has scored more T20I runs with 2,605 than any other player in the world, male or female.
 
Appointed England captain in 2006, Edwards has led her country 220 times, taking the team to ICC Women’s World Cup and ICC World T20 glory in 2009 and winning the Women’s Ashes three times as captain – in England in 2013 and in Australia in 2008 and 2014. 
 
In 2008 Edwards won the ICC Women’s Player of the Year award, in 2014 she was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list and she became only the second woman ever to be named as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year and the first female to be nominated for the ICC LG People’s Choice Award. 

She is also the first woman to join the MCC world cricket committee.

Edwards will continue to play domestic cricket, captaining the Southern Vipers in the inaugural Kia Super League this summer and leading Kent in the Royal London Women's One-Day Championship.

Speaking on her decision to retire from international cricket, Edwards said, 

I leave very proud of the standing in which the women’s game is held and of my contribution as a player and captain.It’s the right time for a new captain to lead the team forward.

” 

While no official announcement has been made regarding the new captain, the current vice-captain Heather Knight is expected to take over.