Gilly's wonder bat retires

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It turns out Gilly's retirement has coincided with the breaking of his "Wonder Bat", the blade with which he struck that 57 ball century against England last summer:

The bat felt right from the start and lightning struck when Gilchrist took it home to Perth for the third Test against England. Gilchrist crashed his way to a famous 100 from 57 balls that day and knew the bat was something special.

"It's just the best bat I've ever had. We're spoilt for choice at this level, the sponsors look after us with quality bats, but this one in particular just felt great," Gilchrist said. "I've really hung on to it and I've tried to sap every bit of life out of it."

Modern bats don't last that long, but Gilchrist has nursed the Wonder Bat as if it was an orphaned marsupial. It has been glued and pinned and preserved at every turn. If staying up nights with a cold flannel and a bottle of milk would have done the trick, Gilchrist would have been there. The axemen of the team will carry six or eight blades in their kit, but Gilchrist carries just three: the much-loved Wonder Bat, a practice bat and a spare.

Once he was aware just how good this model was, it was immediately excused from training. By the time last year's World Cup came around, it was starting to show some fragility.

I confess, I'm a little skeptical of the powers of this bat considering his batting has been below par (by his standards) over the last few years. But you can't discount the irrational superstitions of sportsmen. I've been playing in the same lucky underwear all season (don't worry, they do get washed between games). However, lest I become a slave to tradition, I'm test driving a new pair of undies next Saturday.

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Posted by JC on Thu 7 Feb

5 comments

My lucky charm was not washing my cricket undies between seasons, the first game back was always a bit uncomfortable.

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Posted by cricketwithballs.com on 2008-02-07 11:37:24

So did wearing crusty undies in Game 1 create luck for the entire season or did you just have a cracker of a first game?

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Posted by JC on 2008-02-07 12:44:21

Well, considering that his last 50 in that game came off just 16 odd deliveries, and that too against the Poms.. gotta be a damn special piece of wood!

Great luck with ur game next weekend though!

http://www.apurv-wakes-up.blogspot.com

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Posted by Apurv on 2008-02-07 17:57:49

Btw, great job! Cricket from an Aussie Perspective "and Indian".. couldn't help thinking if that was to shave off any contros.. :)
I'm a busy student but do post at times on my blog as well. Drop by sometime. Great to see fellow folks around with a real zeal for the game!

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Posted by Apurv on 2008-02-07 18:02:51

The history behind the "and Indian" was this blog started as just my (Australian) thoughts. Then an Indian reader asked to be an author. So being lazy, I quickly slapped the extra wording in the header (rather than redesign the whole header). My ultimate hope is to add a "and Sri Lankan", "and New Zealand", etc at the top. Noone from other countries are putting up their hands though - so far the cricket-blog author count is 4 Aussies, 3 Indians.

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Posted by JC on 2008-02-08 07:20:09

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