The Hindu : Sport : ‘Gilly wanted to exit at the right time’

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‘Gilly wanted to exit at the right time’

Special Correspondent

— PHOTO: AP

HOME FAREWELL MATCH: A poignant occasion it ought to be for Adam Gilchrist at the WACA on Friday.

Perth: Australia captain Ricky Ponting was hard pressed to hide his emotions while talking about Adam Gilchrst and ‘Gilly’s’ last international game at the WACA.

Said Ponting: “He probably won’t like me saying this, but when I was batting in Sydney during the second game against Sri Lanka, he came down the pitch to have a bit of a chat with me. He looked at me and said ‘I’m going to miss this. I’m going to miss being out here with you and I’m going to miss all the good times we’ve had on the field.’ It’s starting to hit him that it’s all coming to an end. It’s hitting all of us I think. The moment he made his announcement in Adelaide was a bit of a shock for a lot of us.”

He refused to believe that Gilchrist’s decision to retire from international cricket was influenced by the IPL. “I don’t think Gilly’s retirement had anything to do with that. He had come to the stage where he felt that his game was slipping and he wanted to exit at the right time”

On reports that some of the Australian cricketers preferred IPL to the tour of Pakistan, Ponting said, “Australian cricket takes preference. We have made that clear right from the start.

“Cricket Australia have to release us to play in this tournament anyway. As far as we are concerned right at the moment, we have a tour of Pakistan on.

“If that does or doesn’t go ahead, then some individual players have the choice to make whether they want to go and play in the IPL or not.

“We are pretty much in daily contact with the Players Association and Cricket Australia as to what the status of the Pakistan series is. We are in that information-gathering sort of phase. It’s not that far away now, it’s only three or four weeks away before we are supposed to be heading off. So there are going to be some big decisions made from the board in the next few weeks.”

ICL no threat

The Aussie captain felt since only cricketers on the fringe could opt for the ICL, the IPL represented the real danger. “Because once you do that you are forfeiting your chance of playing international cricket. As we have seen, some of the New Zealanders have already gone there, guys that might have been at the end of their careers have signed with the rebel one, but the danger for me is the IPL one.

“Unless some time is given up for that competition every year, then you might start losing some of the 33, 34-year-olds from international cricket,” he said.

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