FORMER Worcestershire player Dean Headley has been forced to retire from first-class cricket.

The ex-England fast bowler was one of the players given a central contract by the England and Wales Cricket Board last year but suffered a back injury early in the season and has not recovered.

"I sustained a back injury in April 2000 and I feel that, on medical grounds, I have been left with no option but to retire," said 31-year-old Headley, a pupil at the Royal Grammar School Worcester from 1984 to 1988.

He played a starring role in the RGS cricket team, but by his final year at the school was too good for most schoolboy batsmen and was given a chance to play Birmingham League with Old Hill.

Worcestershire took note of his achievements and signed him up, to follow in the footsteps of his father Ron, who opened the batting for the County from 1958-74.

He never made a first-class appearance at New Road and was released in 1990.

"I have enjoyed the years playing cricket for Kent, Middlesex and England, and am naturally very disappointed to have to make this announcement," added Headley.

Meanwhile, Tom Moody has announced his retirement as a player ahead of taking up his appointment as Worcestershire's Director of Cricket.

He had been expected to skipper the Western Australian state team in their remaining two Sheffield Shield matches before beginning his new role at New Road.

But Moody says he has decided to quit a few weeks earlier than planned because his side had no realistic chance of qualifying for the final of Australia's premier domestic competition later in the month.