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Goodbye, Gilly

Adam Gilchrist’s cricket mirrored his personality — utterly selfless and filled with pure passion. To use what has now become a cliché, he changed the way the cricketing world perceived all-rounders. Before he came into the Australian team, wicket keepers were expected to do just that — keep wickets — and anything that they contributed with the bat was seen as a bonus. When you think of Gilchrist, the images that stand out most are of him destroying bowling attacks as if they were meant for that. It was not so much the number of runs that he made, but the manner in which he made them that made him the scourge of all the bowlers in the world. This is not to say that his keeping was any inferior.

Steve Waugh was right when he called him a “once in a generation cricketer.”

Raghunandan Hegde,

Bangalore

Gilchrist’s sudden announcement of his retirement has come as a bolt from the blue to his fans across the world. His decision to quit after dropping a couple of tough chances in the recent series against India, attributing the lapses to his declining reflexes shows his uncompromising nature.

A role model, his retirement is a loss not only to Australia but also the whole cricketing world.

C.P. Srinivasan,

Chennai

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Goodbye, Gilly

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