When Adam Gilchrist’s retirement from all forms of cricket was announced on Saturday evening I felt just one emotion: Pride.
Great players come and go in the game but the truly great – the champions – are the ones who you take pride in the fact you saw them play, rather than you just missing seeing them on the field.
Ian Healy was the Australian wicketkeeper as I grew up supporting Australia and he will always hold a special place in my list of favourite ever players – but Gilchrist just made compelling case after compelling case that Healy could no longer be considered the best wicketkeeper I’d seen. Healy may remain a life long favourite but Gilchrist’s batting was out of this world.
The last few years his batting has remained just as destructive but his big innings became rarer – but no less special as evidenced by his century in the 2007 World Cup Final.
On a personal level I had the opportunity to bowl to Gilchrist at an Australian training session the day before a One Day International against England at the SCG in February 2007 and it was an experience I will never forget. While I did manage to deceive him with a slower ball on one occasion that is not the standout memory from the twenty odd minutes I spent bowling to him in the nets. It was in the space of about ten deliveries, Gilly smashed full length deliveries back past my head on no less than eight of those balls. Just straight tracer bullets that normally would’ve scared me to death but when you have no time at all to react having just delivered the ball and the red leather whizzes back past your melon at a million miles per hour – you can only smile and realise that you’ve just experienced something that only the likes of Courtney Walsh, Wasim Akram and Muttiah Muralitharan have – being smashed by Gilly.
Thanks for the memories Gilly.
Good post. A true champion. Sad to see him go.
The player who having an tramendous determination and commitement with his team.He is one of the evergreen wiketkeeper batsmen in globe.