Had to report on today's play and I put this in the piece (couldn't resist). It prety much sums him up for me:
It was somehow appropriate that one of the game's greatest ever entertainers should announce his retirement on a day where only 260 runs were scored and purists were taken back to a different era. For Gilchrist, as much as any player has embodied the modern cricketer and the current era. Capable of tearing any attack apart, Gilchrist's high grip on the bat and extended, languid swing of the blade was at once mesmerising yet simultaneously terrifying for opposition bowlers, fielders and captains. Richie Benaud says he has never seen a cleaner striker of a cricket ball - Monty Panesar may well agree. Peter Roebuck wrote a few years back that an argument could be made that he was the third greatest cricketer of all time, such has been his influence on the way the game has been played. In any event, we have not seen his like before.
Before Gilchrist, wicket keepers were 'keepers first, and if they could bat so much the better. He changed all that, and it took him all of two test matches to do it. Who could forget Gilchrist's assured debut 81 against Pakistan, at the home ground of his predecessor Ian Healy? An innings which took Gilchrist from Gabba villain at replacing a local legend, to Gabba hero in about two-and-a-half hours. Certainly no keen student of the game will ever forget his century in only his second test, where he and Justin Langer guided Australia to a most unlikely 369 for victory on a cool Hobart day in 1999. These were but two of innumerable memorable innings from the greatest keeper-batsman ever to play the game - a man whose contributions helped take a team which was already world's best to a different level entirely. He was not perhaps the "pure" 'keeper that Healy was, but his glovework was sound and his work to Warne was as tidy as could be expected from anyone. Indeed, so high have Gilchrist's standards been that a few recent blemishes have seemed to stand out all the more. For all the attention to his batting, he has been a wonderful, wonderful wicket keeper for his country.
It is also true that Gilchrist's manner of play sometimes meant he got out in seemingly embarrassing style or didn't handle the moving ball as well as some others, but this was a large part of the Gilchrist charm. There can never have been a more selfless player at the crease. Not for Gilchrist the poring over statistics, individual records or even the slightest care for one's average. Rather, to the end there has been a child-like naivety in his approach - just get out there and give the ball a good old whack. And herein lies the joyous conundrum of trying to analyse his mark on the sport. For in changing the game with his aggression and unbridled skill at number seven, Gilchrist also took us back to a more carefree time. A time when cricket was for the enjoyment, for the love of the exercise - and if you got out, well, you got out. It's an old-world attitude befitting a pre-war English amateur, yet it's refreshing in these modern, professional times. This is the enigma of Gilchrist – in taking cricket forward, he revived memories of its happier, simpler past. The game is richer for his having been here, and his place in its history is assured.
) and has served his country with excellence.
