One of the all time greats of the game, former Australian captain Steve Waugh recently went through a tough exercise of naming the greatest or the most influential cricketer from the post-2000 era. The exercise was tough because the generation post-2000 had some of the greatest names cricket has ever seen in all the disciplines of the game — batting, bowling and fielding. While the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Muttiah Muralitharan, Jacques Kallis and Ricky Ponting continued to dominate in the 21st century after starting their careers in the 90s, the likes of Kevin Pietersen, Virat Kohli, Kumar Sangakkara, MS Dhoni, James Anderson, Dale Steyn et al debuted in the post-2000 era and made it big.
So, it was not an easy exercise for the legend. But biting the bullet, Waugh senior came up with his greatest cricketer post-2000 era by naming his compatriot Adam Gilchrist as the most influential cricketer in the same period. Waugh picked him for revolutionising the role of a wicket-keeper batsman who was mostly a tailender before Gilchrist’s arrival. But the scene changed 360 degrees once Gilchrist started playing as the likes of Sangakkara, Dhoni, Brendon McCullum soon followed suit.
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During Cricket Australia (CA)’s website cricket.com.au’s ‘The Unplayable Podcast’, the 51-year old explained his decision behind picking Gilchrist while promoting Captain’s Ride for charity. Waugh said, “I think the guy who’s changed the game the most you would have to say is Adam Gilchrist. I was lucky enough to be his captain. He definitely changed how wicket keepers are perceived now and if you do that; that means you’ve had a big impact on the game. He’s put a lot more pressure on wicket keepers because they’ve got to be great batsmen now, so they probably all hate him. To do that is pretty incredible.”
Though Gilchrist made his One-Day International (ODI) debut under Mark Taylor in 1996 during the Titan Cup, it was under Waugh that he blossomed as a player. He made his Test debut under Waugh senior in 1999 against Pakistan and gave early signs of being a future great by hammering 88-ball 81. Quite incidentally, he had replaced local hero and long-time servant of Australian cricket, wicketkeeper Ian Healy. And by the time he bid goodbye to international cricket almost over a decade later in 2008, he ended as the leading run-getter by a wicket-keeper batsman besides effecting most number of dismissals behind the stumps.
Though his achievements have since been surpassed by South African legend Mark Boucher (most number of dismissals in Tests as well as across all formats) and Sri Lanka’s Sangakkara (leading run scorer while keeping wickets across all three formats), Gilchrist’s 5,570 Test runs from 96 matches at an average of 47.60 with 17 centuries remain a record for wicket-keeper batsman.
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