Remaining Cricket Career
A recurrence of the effects of his injury in 1924 restricted Gilligan's cricket in 1925. Appearing in fewer games and bowling far less frequently than in previous seasons, he scored 542 runs at 15.05 and took only eight wickets. He bowled in the first four games of the season, but in his remaining seventeen appearances played only as a batsman. In 1926, he was more successful and his performances helped Sussex to rise from thirteenth to tenth in the County Championship. Playing more games, he scored 1,037 runs at 30.50, the highest seasonal batting average of his career, and took 75 wickets at 20.74. That season, although no longer considered for a place in the England team himself, Gilligan joined the panel of Test selectors, and as a consequence missed some cricket for Sussex. He published a book on that summer's tour by Australia called Collins's Men.
During the winter of 1926–27, with other candidates unavailable, Gilligan was chosen to captain an MCC team which toured India; the side was not fully representative and did not play Test matches. In first-class games, he scored three fifties and, bowling infrequently, took ten wickets on the tour. The team, the first to tour India under the colours of the MCC, was very successful. It was originally conceived to encourage cricket-playing Europeans living in India. But as the tour was financed by the Maharajah of Patiala, the team played Indian sides, rather than the European sides envisaged by the tour's organisers. Gilligan, in contrast to many Englishmen, was happy to play Indian teams and actively encouraged Indians to organise their own cricket rather than leave it up to white Englishmen. According to the cricket writer Mihir Bose, Gilligan, unlike others, "met Indians on terms of perfect equality". He successfully encouraged the Indians to form their own cricket board and promised to make a case with the Lord's authorities for India to become a Test playing team. He did so, and in 1929 India became a member of the Imperial Cricket Conference. Bose points out that Gilligan's positive attitude towards Indians, and that of the MCC when granting India Test status, was markedly different to that of most Englishmen. In terms of the advancement of Indian cricket, Bose writes that "Gilligan's influence was immense".
Gilligan continued to play for Sussex until 1932. In 1927, he scored 828 runs at 27.60, but did not bowl in the first half of the season and took just 29 wickets at 24.65. The following season, he scored 942 runs at 26.91, including his last first-class century, and took 76 wickets at 26.27. In 1929, his final season as captain, he played only 12 times; he did not score a fifty, averaged 7.22 with the bat and took four wickets. He was frequently affected by injury; his brother Harold captained Sussex in his absence and assumed the role full-time in 1930. Harold also took over as captain of an MCC team which toured New Zealand in the winter of 1929–30 when Gilligan withdrew owing to illness. Over the next three seasons, Gilligan appeared intermittently for Sussex and the MCC, but scored only one fifty and took just five wickets in total in that time. His last first-class appearance was for H. D. G. Leveson Gower's team against Oxford in 1932. He later played several charity games during the Second World War, including some for Sussex and for the Royal Air Force. In all first-class cricket, Gilligan scored 9,140 runs at an average of 20.08 and took 868 wickets at 23.30. In 11 Test matches, he scored 209 runs at an average of 16.07 and took 36 wickets at 29.05, although 26 of these wickets came in the five Tests he played before his injury. As captain in nine Tests, he won four matches and lost four; the remaining game was drawn.
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