Style of Play
Gilchrist's attacking batting has been a key part of Australia's one-day success, as he usually opens the batting. He was a part of the successful 1999, 2003 and 2007 Cricket World Cup campaigns. Gilchrist's Test batting average in the upper 40s is unusually high for a wicket-keeper. He is currently 45th on the all–time list of highest batting averages. He maintains a Test strike-rate of 82 runs per hundred balls, the highest since balls were recorded in full. His combination of attack and consistency create one of the most dynamic world cricketers ever, playing shots to all areas of the field with uncommon timing. Gilchrist's skills as a wicket-keeper are sometimes questioned; some people would claim that he is the best keeper in Australia while Victorian wicket-keeper Darren Berry was regarded by many as the best Australian wicket-keeper of the 1990s and early 2000s.
In this role, Gilchrist is perhaps disadvantaged by his relatively tall stature for a pure wicket-keeper. However, while perhaps not as elegant as some, he has successfully kept wicket for spin bowler Shane Warne and fast bowlers Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee for most of his international career. His partnerships with McGrath and Lee are second and fourth respectively in both test and ODI history for the number of wickets taken. With Alec Stewart and Mark Boucher, he shares the record for most catches (6) by a wicketkeeper in a ODI match, however he has now achieved this feat five times, the most recent versus India in 2008 CB Series. The match in 2007 was also the second time he took six dismissals and scored a half century in the same ODI; he remains the only player to do so even once. At Old Trafford in August 2005, he passed Alec Stewart's world record of 4,540 runs as a Test wicketkeeper, Statistically, he is currently the most successful ODI wicket-keeper in history; with 400 catches and 53 stumpings, a total of 453 dismissals, his closest rival, Mark Boucher, is more than 80 dismissals behind.
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