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It's over: even for Gilchrist there's a limit

Source: The Age - December 2, 2005

ADAM Gilchrist must consider retiring from 50-over cricket. During the past few years he has had more on his plate than Billy Bunter on his holidays. Wearing coloured clothing, he has opened the batting and flung himself around behind the sticks. In the five-day matches he has stood over the stumps to two leg spinners and has rescued many innings with blistering counterattacks. Nor has there been any respite. Sooner or later the strain was bound to show.

At his best, Gilchrist is magnificent. Steve Waugh famously described him as a "once in a generation" player and forecast that he'd change the way cricket was played. He was right. Scoring rates have rattled along like a runaway train. Few chances have been missed. Australia have been playing with 12 men. As a result most international teams field a clone.

He has also been fun to watch, a sporting antidote to times in which greed is god and fear is rife, when a local company gives $300 million to the Butcher of Baghdad, when the rich cheat the rest and fools rail against the wrong things. At such times it is a relief to watch a sportsman who plays for the side and without resentment, a competitor who attacks at every opportunity, and manages to smile amid calamity.

Gilchrist has been a precious player. Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, his recent form has been patchy. Although he has tried his hardest to maintain the energy and enthusiasm upon which his game depends, he has played in fits and starts. When his eye loses its lustre and his footwork slows, the Australian vice-captain is reduced to mere humanity. Suddenly the chance down the leg side slips away and timely innings prove elusive.

Gilchrist has not been batting or keeping as well in recent Tests. His failures have been a reminder of how much the team had depended on him. His struggles in England were understandable. Andrew Flintoff and company made life hard for every batsman. For once, too, it was tougher for the left-handers. Less forgivably, his glovework also fell back, though not to the levels reached by his counterpart.

Here was a cricketer in need of a spell in the paddock. After a short break, he played splendidly against a rusty World side, scoring a hundred at Telstra Dome that seemed to contradict notions that his workload ought to be lightened. He was not as convincing against the West Indies as early dismissals and missed opportunities came along with the regularity of unwanted taxis.

Not that he was not worth his place in the side. Great players have more room to manoeuvre than lesser lights. Nevertheless his cricket has fallen back. Nor is the explanation hard to find. As the Swan of Avon once put it: "Ripeness is all."

- PETER ROEBUCK