Gilchrist Recounts The Day A Test Star Cried

[Rao_Garu]

What should have been a joyous time - the birth of his first child - set in train events that caused this cricketer to reassess what was really important in life. 

FEBRUARY 2002: The Australian Test wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist is on tour in South Africa when he receives a phone call from his manager, Stephen Atkinson.

Atkinson tells Gilchrist, who two months earlier had celebrated the birth of his first child, Harry, to turn on his laptop and check his emails, one of which links to a website called Cricket365.

To Gilchrist's horror the website features an anonymous email saying Harry was not Gilchrist's son at all but had been fathered by his former teammate Michael Slater.

"At first I thought it was a prank and had a chuckle," Gilchrist writes in his forthcoming book, True Colours. But as he reread the email, "my eyes dimming over", he "got a sick feeling in my stomach". He immediately called his wife, Mel, back in Australia, who was extremely agitated and had to be "calmed down".

The book, excerpts of which will appear in tomorrow's Good Weekend, details the effect of the rumour, which virtually crippled the Test star before the first Test in Johannesburg. Minutes before taking the field he surveyed the stadium and spotted a huge banner reading: "Baby Gilly, who's your daddy?" Next to it, another sign read: "Slater, Slater."

"This was a disgusting thing to do," Gilchrist writes. "But my initial feeling wasn't outrage. It was more a vicious stab of paranoia. It set me thinking: 'Is the whole world talking about it behind my back? Are my teammates talking about it?"'

Walking through the crowd and onto the field he also copped "a spray about it".

"I walked onto the field thinking: 'It's not just two guys with a banner; everyone in South Africa knows about it."'

Gilchrist describes the rumour as "preposterous nonsense".

Slater agrees: "There was absolutely nothing in it. At the end of the day it was a legal matter: there was court action taken against the website, and they had to pay some money, but that didn't heal the hurt, because it was a very heavy thing at the time. It was so false and it's saying something about my character that was so wrong."

For Gilchrist the timing could not have been worse. The story emerged after Harry's difficult birth, during which his umbilical cord "snap-locked around his neck", starving him of oxygen for several minutes and leading to serious post-natal complications.

By the time of his innings in Johannesburg Gilchrist was "in a terrible state". Nevertheless, he went on to score 204 not out - racking up the fastest Test double century in history.

"This was the first time I cried on a cricket field," he writes.

 

[Maximus]

ee falthu section of media valla enni anrthalo.

[Rao_Garu]

ee falthu section of media valla enni anrthalo.

prestitutes

[argadorn]

ee falthu section of media valla enni anrthalo.

frustration lo south africa ni badhadu...200 runs ...

[AverageDesiGuy]

Never knew!