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Gilchrist keeps the faith

Source: The Australian - December 18, 2006

The experts will tell you cricketers lead an unreal life, hermetically sealed from the indignity of having to walk dogs, change nappies or genuflect before the clock in office towers.

They are correct, to a point. Cricketers see, and sometimes live, life in extremis. Politicians and paupers crave their company.

They know the triumph of a Test-changing "ton" and the despair of laying a "duck's egg" in the chaos of a batting collapse. They own huge homes, but spend most of their lives in the world's better hotels with room service, flunkies and complimentary fellow guests.

As acting captain in India two years ago, Adam Gilchrist was given a suite instead of an ordinary hotel room.

"It's fantastic," he said, with some sarcasm. "I can be alone in this room. Then I can be alone in that room. Then, if I'm really looking to make the most of it, I can be alone in the other one."

On that same tour, Gilchrist climbed from a four-wheel drive and walked through the slums of Chennai to visit a World Vision project. The locals had spent the night sweeping and decorating the streets and they waited, a continent deep, for his approach.

Gilchrist didn't hesitate. He waded in, picking up babies, ruffling the hair of street children, pausing to talk to a widow selling kebabs and shaking what seemed like a million reaching hands.

The joy his presence created was palpable. Aware of this, he spent hours there, neglecting the air-conditioned comforts of the team hotel and his duties as captain of the Australian team on the eve of a Test. On the way back, he talked wide-eyed about the size of the children he'd held, how they were so much lighter and smaller than his own.

Outside the WACA Ground yesterday, a man stood selling a small booklet. The Big Fella, by Mike Knuckey, tells of teen Mark Wornum, who battled but was eventually beaten by bone cancer.

Gilchrist and Justin Langer have signed each copy to aid sales, which raise money for charity.

Both visited Mark in hospital after their record-breaking 238-run partnership against Pakistan in Hobart in 1999-2000 and stayed in touch after. Before going out to bat in India, Gilchrist took time out from his duties as Test captain to text the dying boy and say he was thinking of him.

He scored a century then and celebrated by raising both arms and looking skyward. To many, it looked like joy for a personal milestone - to the boy at home, who could hardly raise his head, it looked like something else. His phone texted into life: "Mark, that one was for you. Gilly."

It's not that Gilchrist doesn't change nappies, either. Ringing him at home once, he said he had a bit of time to talk, but warned that Mel, his wife, was out and if the kids woke up, he'd have to go.

Then there's the bloke in white, who can change a cricket game like nobody before.

On Friday night, a UK editor sipped wine in a Perth restaurant and insisted Gilchrist's days with the bat, and the Test side, were done. On Saturday, a newspaper published an article in its early edition documenting his downfall.

It's amazing what a difference 57 balls can make - to a game and to a critical mass. The second-fastest century in Test history really was life in extremis.

Gilchrist said later he never had any doubts about his batting, despite a bit of a dry run of late.

"I always felt like I could do it," he said. "Physically, I feel the same I have for the last four or five years.

"I possibly could have been caught on nought in that gully area - there's no secret that that's where Flintoff's targeted and it seems in the last 15 months, all those chances have gone to hand and gone to hand pretty early in the innings.

"It went through for four today. That's cricket. It sharpened up my focus and I hit my next shot, a nice back-foot drive, a bit straighter and that relaxed my nerves. You maintain the faith in yourself - you lose that and I don't think anybody else can have faith in you."

Gilchrist bats like he lives. He is selfless and passionate. When it comes off, he is untouchable; when it doesn't, he shrugs and walks away. In an era when averages are almost as important as bank accounts, he will risk life and statistics to push the scoring, if that is what the team calls for.

The West Australian's batting should be measured like those elite sports cars that apparently go from nought to 100km/h in 2.07 heartbeats (each of which sets back its owner a million dollars).

Gilchrist has made more than 5000 Test runs. Were he disposed toward protecting his average, it would be in the 50s or higher; because he bats for the team, it is 48. But it is the speed with which he makes runs that is so valuable.

No batsman, who has made more than 2000 runs, has made them as fast as Gilchrist. His career strike rate before the Perth innings was 82 runs per 100 balls. Virender Sehwag, the Indian tyro, goes at 76, the record-holder Viv Richards finished with 69 and Ian Botham 61. The only one close to Gilchrist is Kapil Dev, with 78.

There is much misty-eyed talk of Bradman and his 100-in-a-session, but the greatest batsman ever had a pedestrian strike rate of 60 runs per 100 balls.

Chris Read complained before these Tests that Gilchrist's batting had ruined every other wicketkeeper's career because they were expected to do the same.

December 16, 2006, proved that, even among the specialists, only a rare few can bat like Adam Gilchrist and he has every intention of wrecking more bowlers' averages before he's done.

- PETER LALOR