Gilchrist stumps teammates on bus
JUST before 9am, before the team bus had pulled away from the
kerb outside the Holiday Inn in Adelaide’s Hindley Street, Adam
Gilchrist broke the news none of his teammates expected.
He waited for each of them to climb on board and take his seat.
The bus was quiet, with each player absorbed in his pre-match
routine and pondering his individual role in the third day of the
fourth Test.
Unannounced and with no fanfare, Gilchrist broke the silence.
The Australian wicketkeeper-batsman can be an emotional person but
he showed no emotion when he stood and made a short speech in which
he told his teammates he had decided to retire and that this would
be his last Test.
The Australians were dumbfounded and there was no reaction as
Gilchrist took his seat. No one spoke during the short trip over
the River Torrens to the Adelaide Oval, where, in a couple of
hours, Matthew Hayden and Phil Jaques would resume the fight for
supremacy against India.
Like most in Australian cricket, Gilchrist’s teammates knew he
was contemplating retirement but expected him to give one-day
cricket away first, probably at the end of the summer.
Only the previous evening, after breaking Mark Boucher’s world
record for Test dismissals, the 36-year-old deflected questions
about his future at his press conference. “Not going to sit here
and hint at my future. I heard on TV it looks like I’m defending
myself at press conferences all the time,” he said. “I will let
people know when I’m going to retire, whether it’s tomorrow or in
12 months.”
But after he left the ground that night, Gilchrist phoned his
father, Stan, and told him of his plans to retire from Test cricket
after the India series and from one-day cricket, the form of the
game in which he was recently voted Australia’s greatest player, at
the end of the summer.
“He just said that he knew the time was right,” Stan Gilchrist
said. “He said he knew, just like guys like Ian Chappell have
always said, and that he was comfortable with the decision. Our
response was that we were very supportive of his decision.”
Gilchrist’s parents flew from the NSW North Coast where
Gilchrist grew up before moving to Western Australia to get an
opportunity with the gloves to Adelaide yesterday for the
official announcement.
“He asked us if we’d like to come down, and of course we said
yes,” Stan Gilchrist said. “The phone call was pretty brief, but he
knows it’s the right time.”
The mood lightened after the bus arrived and the Australians
found their spots in the dressing room. Someone cracked a joke that
next year Gilchrist would join the ranks of retired players in the
press, heaping grief on his old teammates.
Such criticism has been heaped on Gilchrist in recent days,
after a difficult series with the gloves became worse with a simple
dropped catch off the bat of V.V.S. Laxman on Thursday. When he
grabbed the next catch off Brett Lee’s bowling, the fast bowler
wrapped him in a bear hug.
“Adam informed everyone this morning and there was a lot of
emotion,” said Hayden, who will cherish his last series as
Gilchrist’s opening partner in the triangular series against India
and Sri Lanka. “It’s massive news, and it’s surprising news, but I
guess from my point, I feel incredibly privileged to have played
with Adam for as long as I have.
“He hasn‘t really indicated (why now),” Hayden added.
“(His) flamboyant nature equals the greats of Vivian Richards
and some of the other calypso characters we have seen. It has been
such an inspiring and stellar performance over a long period of
time. He has played with remarkable skill, he’s entertained not
only himself but everyone globally and has done it in a
statesman-like way. He changed cricketers throughout the world and
is a tremendous individual.”
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Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 12:15 am under