Everything seems normal. Waiting in the hotel lobby, confidence is at a high. After all, I have finally managed to get time from Adam Gilchrist — after quite a few attempts.
But that is only till he arrives, shakes hands and asks me to shoot off. The hand starts trembling, and queries desert me. I desperately try to locate the pages where my questions are listed, forget how to switch on the recorder and try to settle all those butterflies.
He senses the tongue-tied situation I am in and excuses himself for five minutes. I take a deep breath, steady my nerves and get back in control for the interview.
He responds with a smile when he comes back. Those groovy blue eyes one had seen on TV since childhood are now surrounded with fine wrinkles. Have they lost colour to age or is it the dark blue of his T-shirt overshadowing themIJ Can he ever age and leave the gameIJ
“look I am neither the player I used to be back then or even five years ago,” he says without rancour as I express surprise over Zaheer Khan beating him with pace and length during the KXIP-RCB match. It seems as if it was just the other day that in the 2003 World Cup final Gilchrist laid the foundation of that 125-run win against India targeting its lead bowler Zaheer. His first over had gone for a massive17 runs and he ended up with 67 for none in seven overs.
He smiles and reminds you that “then I was 10 years younger. I feel behind the pace now. I try to fight in there but I am not quite as sharp as I used to be. That’s for sure. My reflexes are probably not as good as before,” he adds.
Had it not been for these receding reflexes, or what Gilchrist thought about them during that fateful Test against India where he dropped VVS laxman in a very athletic dive, he might have stayed on in international cricket for some more time.
“With time, everyone gets slower. It’s not that you can’t play but you are not quite up to the speed these guys are playing with. So you have to try harder to get through. You have to fight a bit more and that’s a good challenge,” Gilchrist tells you. 41 is not that old, not for Churchy at least.
“This is clearly the last IPl that I would be involved in as a player,” he adds. His impending exit is no news but yet so alarming. He said that in Dharamsala last year too. But this time, he seems to have made up his mind. “I am enjoying these last few matches. This time I am not evaluating any new options.”
If it was to be his final show, why couldn’t he play the part a bit longer by securing a play-off spot in advance rather than leaving it for the last moment that never came his wayIJ Just the way it happened last year. Kings XI entered their Dharamsala matches in 2012 with a need to win both to qualify and then luck to help the math.
“I don’t know why, if we knew, we’d change it. Obviously, we haven’t played well enough enough times this season to secure a spot in the finals. It’s frustrating but at I’d rather have a chance than no chance at all. Every match we played was a difficult challenge. It’s about being consistent and teams like Mumbai, Chennai have been consistent. Rajasthan have been consistent, especially at home. We’ve been inconsistent, some matches were good some not,” he says.
He can count those bad moments on his finger. “I wouldn’t say there is one moment that cost us dear. But there is one moment that allowed us to stay alive and that was David Miller’s century against RCB. If we had gone down then, it would have been a big slide. It picked us up, kept us alive,” he says.
Not one to blame individuals for collective failure, Gilchrist keeps the spirit high as much as he can.
“The overseas players, me included, failed in contributing enough. I wouldn’t see any particular player, type or group to have let the team down. Everyone has chipped in a bit at times but not enough,” he says, adding that even the skipper should not be given immunity from criticism.
“like any player who is not scoring runs or getting results, you eventually have to sit out and give someone else a chance,” he says of himself and David Hussey, who also was one moment leading the side and the other not finding a place.
“A captain isn’t immune to being dropped. like I was leading the team and then got dropped,” he says.
But being Gilchrist means he came back even stronger and seemed like the Gilly of yore when he played that mesmerising 85-run knock against the RCB. Ask him what happened in the break and he gives you that heart-warming smile before saying: “I don’t know. The players never really consolidated their position. As a team, we felt that my contribution as a wicketkeeper and skipper was needed. It’s a funny game T20 cricket. I wasn’t batting well against RCB but ended up getting 85. Some days you feel great but you get out.
“A captain has to lead by example. And, he (Hussey) was not making enough runs. Miller was getting runs. Shaun Marsh too. Then we had to get in Azhar Mahmood to balance the team. We gave luke Pomersbach a look in. Then I came back. like every franchise we also try to squeeze in 5-6 overseas players in those four slots. There have to some difficult choices. Even David knows that,” he explains.
With even a talent like Hussey having been made to sit out or wait for chances to prove his form again, the relaxation of the ‘four overseas player’ rule is right way to go. Many captains have also been rooting for it.
Churchy, however, likes “the idea of leaving it at four.” He is of the opinion that the set-up allows for the selection of young Indian players. “It becomes difficult to pick new unknown faces but it is an Indian domestic competition and it’s important to maintain that integrity and foundation,” Gilchrist says.
“I would like to explore the idea of loaning players, the way it happens in football. There’s too much talent sitting on the bench. That’s a shame. We want to see them play. Mumbai and Chennai have immense talent on the bench. When Delhi lost Kevin Pietersen, they could have borrowed a player from some other team. There could be a small window for that. Of course, there has to be a financial incentive for the home team to which the player belongs. That could make it exciting,” he says, making one wonder how easy it is for this guy to find solutions.
So, like football, shouldn’t IPl become a season-long affairIJ “That would be sad because that would mean the end of international cricket. International cricket is of paramount importance and that needs to be maintained. The IPl is a wonderful tournament that is being copied all over the world. Football, with its much higher level of participation, is different,” he feels.
“There may be a time in future when club cricket becomes the staple and international cricket takes a backseat but that is far away. I would like to see international cricket being preserved as it is,” he adds.
With T20 and IPl ruling cricket, protecting international cricket seems a huge task. The capacity crowd turning up for IPl and T20 matches, and the relatively empty stands during Tests and ODIs second his fear.
The Australian, who redefined the role of wicketkeeper-batsmen, agrees that in this modern day, it is not feasible for all to go and sit for five days for a Test match except in iconic series like the Ashes or an India-Australia clash. But he feels that is where administrators need to step in and restore the balance. “At the moment it feels like it is a freight train of commercialism of T20,” he says.
“It’s too much cricket. It’s all about supply and demand and there is an oversupply of cricket. In a cricket-frenzied country like India, there is always a huge appetite for the game. But as a rule, we should be trying to reduce the volume of cricket so that the appetite goes up and demand goes up for every format,” Gilchrist says.
“Tests, ODIs and T20s can co-exist. The beauty of the game would be to play all formats and satisfy all appetites without changing the game too much. When people talk about T20, they easily get drawn to IPl. It is not the only T20 tournament. Every nation has a T20 tournament. It is important that the BCCI starts acknowledging those tournaments too and relaxes its outlook on allowing Indian cricketers to participate in them. That would only help the game grow globally.
“The commercial value of T20 could help Test cricket survive. One-day cricket might have to give in a little bit. Test cricket is sacred, keep it the way it is. Experiment in short cricket. There can be a cohesive approach to that from around the world,” Gilchrist says.
The only thing that would ruin cricket, Tests, one-dayers or T20, he feels is greed — greed of administrators, greed of players. “The ones who would be the most compromised would be the spectators,” he says worriedly about the game he has loved and a journey he has enjoyed. India, luckily, has been a crucial part of that.
“It has been a wonderful experience, that’s why I kept coming back for IPl. I am a keen traveller to India and the IPl helped enhance my cultural experience by bringing players from around the world at one place,” he tells you in a customary goodbye message.
But, for all Gilly fans, his connection with India will not go away with his absence from IPl. He talks of “frequent visits” and the Indian sandalwood trees that he has been growing back home.
Apart from taking care of his business interests, delivering motivational lectures and nurturing corporate relationships, Gilchrist is all set to now spend his retirement time spreading the scent of India worldwide.
“We grow Indian sandalwood trees in northern Australia which has a climate similar to Bangalore and Mysore. We have got the biggest forest plantation of Indian sandalwood trees in the world. We are looking forward to our first harvest soon and to marketing it in just a few months,” he says with that familiar spark in his blue-green eyes. “I am the director of that business. There is a huge demand for Indian sandalwood and there’s not enough supply.”
Though that’s enough work for a retired pro, one is still tempted to know if he would be seen in the middle in some other role. For, the ones whose cricketing memory seems to be just as old as his career that started in 1996 with an ODI debut, will find it difficult to adjust to his absence.
Gilchrist, however, is not tempted. Well, he has never been. “That’s plenty,” he says of his post-retirement plans. “And then there are four children to chase,” he adds, leaving me with confusing emotions — whether to celebrate the meeting that I had been waiting for so long, or be sad that there might not be another chance to talk to himIJ