Australian and international cricket will be weaker for the loss of Adam Gilchrist, says Bob Willis.
Retirement has become a bit of a recent theme on these pages because after Shaun Pollock only a few weeks ago, Adam Gilchrist is the next modern great calling time on his international career.
Gilchrist is a one-off really, who, with Michael Slater, has changed the Test match game. In the last ten years run rates of 2.5 runs per over have become a thing of the past and we are now used to 4 runs an over on a regular basis. The major pioneers of this change are Gilchrist and Slater.
The impact that he has had on the modern game can't be underestimated - I don't think anyone has had more influence on it than Gilchrist through his career.
He took off like a whirlwind and while everyone thought he would be blown out like a candle that hasn't really happened. Perhaps in one-day cricket he has been worked out a bit and his runs don't always come as quickly as they once did, but he has absolute license to thrill in the one-day game because of the strength of the Australian batting order.
In Test cricket his form has been maintained brilliantly and to end up with an average of 47 after 96 Test matches is quite remarkable for a number seven batsmen, whether he is keeping wicket or not. If a number seven averaged 40 we would be impressed but 47 and also keeping wicket pretty damn well as well is simply outstanding.
There hasn't been his like in the game before and if you were naming a best ever cricket team throughout the history of the game, Adam Gilchrist would definitely be in it.
Keeping
He has worked extremely hard on a skill that he wasn't a natural at. He has made mistakes with the gloves - he has dropped chances - but he hasn't missed many stumpings and to have kept wicket as well as he did against Shane Warne for so long is a testimony to his professionalism.
I remember doing my morning exercise in Chandigarh during the ICC Champions Trophy in 2006. Gilchrist was out early also, doing boxing training with the team trainer, and it was amazing to see the dedication and professionalism of someone who had been at the top of the game for that length of time.
He prided himself on his fitness and professionalism, and so although not a great wicketkeeper, he was one of the few who would have kept himself in the side as a wicket-keeper, even without the weight of runs that came with him.
Sportsman
It will not just be his explosive batting and his keeping that will be remembered because he is also one of cricket's great sportsmen.
I think he shocked the Australians when he announced that he would walk if he hit the ball. That isn't the Australian way at all; they have always been taught to stand there until the umpire gives it out and then not complain when you are given.
If you've hit the ball to second slip you stand at the crease and wait for the umpire to send you back in Australia but Gilchrist saw that plenty was going wrong with the game and that the standard of umpiring wasn't getting better. He chose to make the decision to try to improve this off his own back.
He should be commended for it and it is just another part of his game that makes him a great cricketer and one that the international game is going to miss and the Australian team too.
Loss
There are definitely signs that this Aussie team is creaking at the seams a bit. Quite obviously with Stuart MacGill not available, Brad Hogg is no substitute for Warne and Mitchell Johnson is not looking a sub for Glenn McGrath either.
Matthew Hayden can't hang around that much longer and Chris Rogers didn't, in our first glimpse of him, look as though he will be a substitute for him when he does go.
In the last two years they have lost Justin Langer and Damien Martyn too. Gilchirst has gone, Hayden will go at some point and the heart of the great team is disappearing and Australia are drifting back into the pack quicker than they would have liked.
There is still Ricky Ponting of course, and Michael Clarke and Michael Hussey are also performing. Brett Lee is consistent but the rest of them probably aren't going to make a world XI whereas a year or so ago you would probably have picked eight Australians in a side representing the planet.
These are encouraging times for the rest of the cricketing world and India have put on an encouraging display in Australian under Anil Kumble. The Indians are stronger, Sri Lanka, although soundly beaten there recently, are strong at home and these are places Australia will have to go to and prove that they are still way out in front as No.1. I don't know whether they will be able to do that.
After the end of this ODI series against India and Sri Lanka in Australia, the baggy greens' wicketkeeper will no longer be Gilchrist and there can be no doubt that the absence of this true, modern, great cricketer will be a loss to Australia and a loss to the international game.
