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Gilchrist hails form reversal

Source: ABC Sport - October 8, 2005

Australia's Adam Gilchrist was just pleased to get among the runs after smashing his country's fastest one-day international century in the 55-run victory over the World XI in Melbourne on Friday night.

Gilchrist, who brought up his 12th one-day international century off just 73 balls - five fewer than the record he jointly held with Allan Border - spearheaded Australia's 4 for 328 at Melbourne's Docklands Stadium.

The World XI were then bowled out for 273 to lose the series 2-0 with a game to play, a boost for Australia after they lost the Ashes in England last month.

"I'm certainly relieved to be getting runs," Gilchrist said. "Like everyone who came back from England, I had a bit to think about and some hard work to do.

"I don't think I needed to change some major things, I just needed to clear my head and get in some really hard practice.

"The net sessions and training here have been great and we have just been doing some hard work. I think if you work hard enough and long enough it'll turn around."

Gilchrist, who shared in a 110-run opening partnership with Simon Katich to lay the foundation for the huge total, was unaware he had broken the record.

"I didn't know how many balls I had faced at any stage of the innings except the first ball," Gilchrist said. "I knew I faced that.

"I didn't feel like I got off to a flier at the start. At the middle I knew the tempo was going all right.

"It's all about the start we get for the team and fortunately Kato and I have had a couple of good launching pads for the team and the guys then came in and cashed in on that."

World XI captain Shaun Pollock said the destructive Gilchrist had ensured his composite side were under pressure from the outset.

"It was pretty difficult," Pollock said.

"He is a lethal player up front and really can do some damage. It was a good deck and he took advantage.

"To get a start like that... and set a foundation at such a rate of knots really does put you on the back foot.

"He was superb and set the game up for them."

Australian skipper Ricky Ponting said he had to ask a lot of his bowlers, missing rested Glenn McGrath, to change the world team's early scoring momentum.

"We had to do things a bit differently in our bowling innings today, they got off to an unbelievably good start, Chris Gayle and Virender Sehwag were knocking us all over the place and we had to change the momentum of the game," Ponting said.

"We knew once we got a wicket or two the run-rate would slow down and that's the way it turned out."

The third and final match is at the same venue on Sunday.