Monty Panesar has ended his foray into politics after just a week, announcing that he has resigned as a parliamentary candidate for George Galloway's Workers Party of Great Britain.
Panesar, 42, was unveiled by Mr Galloway at a media event in Westminster last week and was due to contest the Ealing Southall seat in west London at the next general election, a seat currently held by Labour with a majority of 16,084.
Writing in the Telegraph at the time, Panesar said he wanted to be "the voice of the working people of this country", adding that "my ambition in politics is to be Prime Minister one day".
But after a series of difficult media interviews, including one with Times Radio in which he struggled to take a position on Britain's continued membership of NATO, he has now decided to withdraw his candidacy.
Panesar wrote on X:
"I'm a proud Brit who has had the honour to represent my country at the highest level of cricket. I now want to do my bit to help others but I recognise I am at the beginning of my journey and still learning about how politics can help people.”
Panesar, whose full name is Mudhsuden Singh Panesar, became the first practising Sikh to represent England in 2006 when he was selected in Nagpur for the first Test of that winter's tour of India.
Since retiring, he has been studying sports journalism at St Mary's University in London, and earlier this month lent his support to the Show Racism the Red Card campaign by appearing in a video promoting the benefits of immigration.
In 2021, he defended his former England captain Michael Vaughan after he was accused of racially abusing Azeem Rafiq while playing for Yorkshire in 2009.