Yet Another

The Adelaide Oval – 26^th January 2008. Those of us who followed the action were fortunate to witness a Don-overtaking century from one of Australia’s great opening batsmen – Matthew Hayden. But the highlight of the day was another very sad, unfortunate and sudden high profile retirement, this time Australia’s stand out performer and for many years fixture behind the stumps, Adam Craig Gilchrist.

Gilly was a crowd puller. When he came into bat or was already at the crease, people from all around the world, regardless of their nationalities and preferred teams, tuned in to watch him. More often than not, Gilly satisfied the viewers.

There were two Gilchrists – Gilly the ‘keeper and Gilly the batsman. Both these avatars were sensational rather than charming. Gilchrist the batsman had a good technique, but don’t expect an exhibition of the copybook cover drive, timed to perfection, all along the ground, reaching the ropes. Gilly knew that the bat was meant to be used to hit the ball, and he did so with a great amount of force. When Gilchrist bats, there’s fireworks. He will not give you an innings of such class and technical proficiency which the common man cannot appreciate – although I tend to believe that this was more by choice than inability. Gilchrist will come to the crease and will entertain. On Gilchrist’s good day, any price for a ticket is value for money.

The reason Gilchrist is said to have revolutionised test match batting, is that he brought an aggressive, attacking style into it. Now, as a result of the Gilchrist phenomenon, even the purest of the purists are able to enjoy a little bit of slam-bang-wallop in Test Match Cricket. He batted in Test cricket with a strike rate of just under 82! There have been many aggressive batsmen – a certain Sir I.V.A.Richards and Krishnamachari Srikkanth to name a few, but Gilchrist was something different.

Gilly was also a wicket keeper. Gilly’s greatness lies in the fact that one can say it either way, Gilly was a ‘keeper who batted, or Gilly was a batsman who kept. His wicket keeping was sensational as well. There were stunning and athletic dives, and pictures of Gilly behind the wicket bare a stark resemblance to Rhodes at backward point. Gilly was amongst the best in the world, and picked up some blinders, but he was never indisputably the best ‘keeper in his time. There was always South Africa’s Mark Boucher to give him competition. Also, some believe that Gilly’s most probable successor, Bradley Haddin is better behind the stumps than Gilchrist. But, even behind the stumps, as irrelevant as it may seem, Gilly was more fun to watch than most others. He was always flying (rather than diving) about behind the stumps to the pacers and picking up stunning catches where he had very limited sight of the ball. So often one hears the commentator saying, “How did he get that far?” Well, that’s Gilchrist.

Gilchrist’s retirement is very sad. We will all miss one of the most captivating cricketers of all time, without whom the cricketing arena just will not be the same. Cricket – or all sport – is meant to provide entertainment. And few have entertained more than Adam Gilchrist. Thank you Churchie. Thank you very very much.-BS

This article was meant to be a little longer, but it was unfortunately curtailed due to the editor’s reluctant display of favour towards his academic pursuits. Cricket Opinions apologises.