Australia's Lindsay Reeler walked away from cricket after a record-breaking World Cup — in rare interview, she explains why

Australian women's cricket had never seen anything like the destructive power of Lindsay Reeler at the 1988 World Cup held on home soil.

The right-hander smashed 448 runs at an extraordinary average of 149, with two centuries and two half-centuries. But her unbeaten 59 in the win over England in the final would be the last time she padded up for Australia.

Reeler was lost to international cricket at the peak of her powers, aged only 27.

«It was absolutely outstanding. Those figures don't lie,» Reeler's Australian teammate Denise Annetts told ABC Sport.

«Lindsay being an opening bat, when she got in, that was it. She was just way above so many of the other teams in her ability. She just took them apart and was a very dynamic player, beautiful cover driver, lovely pulls, cuts, you name it.

»In some cases, she came up against sides … she just absolutely destroyed them really."

Reeler had been battling an injury that got progressively worse during the World Cup.

The more weights she did to strengthen her left leg, the more damage she was doing.

«I had two surgeries [on my left knee] after the World Cup,» Reeler told ABC Sport in her first interview in more than three decades.

«In 1989, I saw an orthopaedic surgeon and he fiddled around with it and said, 'Do you know you don't have an anterior cruciate ligament?' and I said 'No'.

»I went through something of a grieving process because I knew that my sporting days were over.

«And that took something like three years to come to terms with.»

Reeler had suffered the injury as a 17-year-old and it happened well away from the sporting arena.

«It's a ridiculous situation, there was a pile of timber decking in the carport, the car was backed up against this pile, I was getting stuff out of the