Adam Gilchrist: “Have I Been A Hoax?” — The Truth Behind His Cricket Career

Adam Gilchrist built one of the greatest cricket careers Australia has ever seen — and almost nobody knows how close he came to losing it. In this episode of Straight Talk, Mark Bouris sits down with Gilly to unpack the mindset behind elite performance: what it's like to get booed onto the field at 22, how a single email from a mate mid-Test-match changed the way he thinks forever, and why the 2005 Ashes nearly broke him. Plus, the real story behind his tequila business, El*Arquero and what every Australian entrepreneur can learn from it. Subscribe to the Mentored newsletter here: https://the-mentored-platform-pty-ltd.myklpages.com/l/WWJGc5 Join my exclusive Mentored+ community: https://mentored.com.au/become-a-member/ Executive Producer: Samuel Morgan Head of Production: Jonah Mclachlan See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Adam Gilchrist, we're on a straight talk, mate. It's about time.

• 0:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:03Speaker 00

  I know, actually, it's about time he bought me some booze.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Well, I think you like the repo, I think.

• 0:08Speaker 00

  Well, let's just talk about this quickly, because I'm maybe not even quickly, but tequila blanco and tequila reposado.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, which means rested.

• 0:18Speaker 00

  Rested.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's been rested in oak barrels.

• 0:22Speaker 00

  Right.

• 0:22Speaker 01

  American oak ex bourbon barrels. That's that's been for five months.

• 0:26Speaker 00

  That's why it's got the colour.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  That's the tinge of colour, changes its colour, uh, its flavour and notes and taste a little bit.

• 0:31Speaker 00

  A little sweeter, is it a bit sweeter?

• 0:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, a little bit, yeah. So, and it's just like aging a whiskey or a wine.

• 0:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  Uh, and we've still got stock in barrel over there, which will bring out probably about eighteen months, and that's called an aho, which means aged.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  Right.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  So it all starts as that, as a base spirit.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  It starts off with white or clear.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 0:48Speaker 00

  And, uh, and what are we talking about? Tequila. Why tequila? Why did Adam Gilchrist? Why did Gillie go on to get a startup of tequila? I mean, is it because you like some of the movie stars in America who've done the same thing and made a bloody fortune?

• 1:01Speaker 01

  No, I was, I was actually liking tequila. I love it. I just love it and wanted to give it a crack. Uh, and the love and passion and interest in it was long before George Clooney sold his for a billion dollars. So I haven't sort of seen that and gone, oh, there's a chance. Um, no, I've always played around with it in my mind and eventually just went, no, let's, let's do it. My wife one day said, either put up or shut up.

• 1:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, do something about it.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  About a lot, and I took that as a green light, so off we went. And I only wanted to do something authentically produced in Mexico. There are people, you're probably aware, growing agave up in North Queensland and, but you can't call it tequila unless you bottle it in.

• 1:39Speaker 00

  Oh, really?

• 1:40Speaker 01

  Tequila region.

• 1:41Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:41Speaker 01

  And I wanted to do it in, you know, with all the heritage and tradition of the tequila that I've enjoyed and. Uh, so went over there, spent time, met with about eight distilleries, learnt about them, told them what we were aspiring to achieve. Uh, and then we've partnered up with a third generation distiller and, and they make great juice and they're absolutely beautiful to deal with and be in partnership with.

• 2:03Speaker 00

  It's a pretty cool place, Mexico, um, and I love the lifestyle there. And the tequila you get over there alongside the Mexican food. It's just a real experience.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13Speaker 00

  It's pretty cool.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:14Speaker 00

  This stuff though sends me nuts and I'm gonna try, but this stuff, I don't know what it is about tequila. What is it? What is the deal about a couple of shots of tequila? Is there something special in it?

• 2:23Speaker 01

  There's a, there's a theory that tequila, and it's been long held and a lot of people pass it around, that it's the only alcoholic upper. Where every other alcohol is basically a depressant.

• 2:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Starts off stimulating, but then it drops.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Then it actually be, yeah, but, um, unfortunately that's not true about tequila. It's alcohol. It's exactly the same as every other form of alcohol. Uh.

• 2:44Speaker 00

  I get a bit looser on that, but I, I.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  I hear people say that a lot. Um, as I say, I wanted something authentically made, but it had to be additive free.

• 2:54Speaker 00

  Okay, it's clean.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  People get caught. It's the cleanest form of alcohol you get. That is agave juice, yeast and water. That's all it is. No added sugars, nothing else.

• 3:04Speaker 00

  So they get the agave plant, which is a succulent.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:06Speaker 00

  And are they, what are they, crushed or something? Do they get the juice out?

• 3:09Speaker 01

  They carve all the big fronds off. They look like, you know, they've got the big spikes come out. They carve them off. And you get left with what's called the pena. It's the heart of it. Oven roasted for anywhere twenty four to thirty six hours. And then crush it. The juice comes out, capture that, yeast water, let it ferment and then double distill it. And so that process takes a couple of weeks and then, yeah.

• 3:31Speaker 00

  It's clean, because, I mean, it, it can give you a hangover. I mean, I remember people say, tequila won't give you a hangover, because it's a clean alcohol.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  I think if you drink too much, you're going to have a hangover.

• 3:41Speaker 00

  That's my point. Um, you'll get the alcohol hangover or the acetaldehyde hangover. It's not really the alcohol that's problem. It's the metabolic version of that. Once you metabolize it, but it, because it's got no additives, you don't get the other shit in your, in your system.

• 3:55Speaker 01

  That's it. Exactly.

• 3:56Speaker 00

  There's no preservatives or anything like that.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's, I mean, I've said this often, I've had the bad tequila experience on bad tequila. When I was far too young and reckless and where everyone goes, oh no, I've sworn off that forever. But this is part of what I'm loving doing. And, and as I say, I mean, everyone laughingly says, I'll drink responsibly. But the point about the hangover, it's to be enjoyed. It's premium product.

• 4:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  I mean, people have forever sipped on whiskey, fine whiskeys.

• 4:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Um, these, uh, they're more versatile than just a late night shot.

• 4:28Speaker 00

  So they're not just shots.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  Sipping tequila, either the blanco, whatever you prefer, uh, the reposado in particular, but can be mixed for margaritas. Um, in a health conscious world, we've been saying, like, if you're gonna have a drink and you're, and you're sort of in that mindset. Mix it with low sugar soda water and fresh juices, fresh pineapple juice, fresh lime juice.

• 4:48Speaker 00

  Oh, pineapple juice sounds good.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  The pineapple one is a tall glass, lot of ice. It's almost like a spritzer more than, than a cocktail or a, a straight, um, spirit drink. So, yeah, it's versatile and fun. I just, I just love it. I reckon if someone turns up with a bottle of tequila, you go, oh, we're in for a bit of funny.

• 5:04Speaker 00

  I'm glad you're here because, and we're talking about this, because yesterday I, I sat down with, um, and I actually went down to his, um, new gym to give a bit of a push. Alex Volkanovski.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:14Speaker 00

  And I was talking to Volk about the different businesses he's in, running off the back of the audience that he's built as.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 5:22Speaker 00

  Great fighter.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 5:23Speaker 00

  Not dissimilar to yourself. I mean, you know, without sort of bliming smoke up the proverbial, you know, you're probably in, in all aspects the greatest wicket keeper we've ever had. In Australia. And some say that, many say that. Heels, he'll kill me for saying that, but, but he wasn't as good at bat as a batsman as you.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was gonna say, wicket keeper, oh, Heels was, Heels was.

• 5:41Speaker 00

  But I'm talking about all round cricketer, which includes wicket keeping as one of the variables.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 5:46Speaker 00

  Okay?

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 5:47Speaker 00

  Heels, his batting average wasn't like up there with yours, okay? But using your, call it fame or call it your success. Uh, relative to what I recognise in an image, the, the, the vision of yourself. And also you have, you know, you, you're able to leverage media right now. You're still, you're still in the media.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 6:08Speaker 00

  Um, how does one go about building successful other leveraged products? I mean, I mean, how do you feel about that?

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it, it, it's a great point and I reckon maybe even Ricky might have spoken to you about it around his wine business. Ricky Punting. And, uh, I know there's skepticism out there and we, we've all done, and as you go through the journey, product endorsement.

• 6:35Speaker 00

  Well, mate, I'm doing my own whiskey and it's hard. I find it hard.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So, and there's skepticism around celebrity led brands too.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Whereas in America, we've, we've been talking to people over there and they go, oh, who's your celebrity? Well, I mean, obviously in America, I'm not the celebrity, but, but, you know, distributors or, um, people in the industry over there, oh, who are you gonna get lead your push? And it's like, well, no, we probably, we're probably trying to work overtime the other way to say. Adam Gilchrist is major shareholder and founder of this business. He's not a brand ambassador getting paid to do it.

• 7:05Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  It's my dream and my business. Uh, and I, I do have some other shareholders, but, but this is all conceived from my love and passion for it. And, um, and desire and motivation to give it a crack.

• 7:18Speaker 00

  So therefore your product's got to be as good as everybody else's. It can't be just celebrity based.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Totally. And we'll back, we, we're proudly backing the liquid quality to stand up. So it's called El Aguero. Which one of the translations from Spanish to English is the keeper? So that, yeah, so that's a subtle nod to my past. And I've got the napkin, that one of those good old stories in the, in the restaurant one night with mates. Few drinks, Google translate, let's find a name. This would be five years ago. And I thought, El Aguero, that sounds like a, like a tequila. Um, Spanish, but it's got meaning and significance to me and my past. And I always, I mentioned punter. Well, it's a lot more subtle than Ponting wines, isn't it? He just threw his name on the bloody label. If I'm making people work for it, but, uh, but, but.

• 8:05Speaker 00

  You listen to this, mate?

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Hey, Rick, love you. Um, but that's, that's the only reference, as subtle as it is, to anything on that bottle. To, to my past. Uh, there's a little, you know, we debated, do we put my name on the label, on the branding? There's a little thing on the back label that's got my autograph on there that, where I explain what I was hoping to achieve with this tequila.

• 8:29Speaker 00

  Of course, people want to know the story behind it.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, and underneath it says founder. It doesn't say ex cricketer or it just says founder of the business. So, yeah, we're, we're at pains to, to make sure, look, mate, you know the commercial space better than me. If, if my profile can help get in a door.

• 8:46Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  And I've been doing this all my life in product endorsement or going to India, going to India with government, um, you know, in various roles. You'll get in the door. India's a good example. You'll get in the door with, with a cricketer in India, no brainer. But if you haven't got a quality product or partnership opportunity or something that is going to have value both ways.

• 9:08Speaker 00

  And the ability to deliver.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 9:09Speaker 00

  Constantly.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  All you're gonna have there is a photograph and an autograph and walk out the door.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  Thanks very much.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  So, so we're, I was very aware of that coming into this from that experience and the learnings of my life to that point. So, yeah, we knew we had to get, and this goes back to meeting eight distilleries and tasting the liquid that they make for their own family label. Uh, and learning how we can then work from that to get our own liquid profile. We just knew we had to nail the liquid and it had to stand up. So. And the best endorsement for us and for me is coming to play, say a place like Sydney and going into. Some of these industry leaders in the agave space as the, the Mucho Group who have Cantina, okay, Centro eighty six. They are almost the doyens of agave in Australia. Jeremy there tastes it and puts it on his back bar.

• 9:57Speaker 00

  It's got on the shelf.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  And we work together. And that's the greatest endorsement that we could have to know that he's not gonna put something on his back bar. Or, or do cocktails with it just because it's Gillie's tequila.

• 10:09Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  He needs to know its quality. And, um, yeah, we feel like we're, we've, we've got that right. Now we've got to just make sure people understand who we are and. And how we've gone about it.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  You're right. For people who are listening to this, um, most people just think that, um, oh, you're famous and, um, in your case. And, uh, you're well known, like, you know, across the country and probably in India and other places where cricket is played as well. Uh, that you can immediately just put your sort of brand feeling behind something and it kicks off.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:38Speaker 00

  It's actually got a lot of hard work involved. You've got to keep knocking on doors. You've got to keep talking to the people like the people you're just talking about. People who've got Mexican restaurants, Mexican bars.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:45Speaker 00

  Or have anything along those lines. Will you put my product? They're not gonna put your product unless the product's any good.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:50Speaker 00

  And, uh, you've got to be, and that, that's just not, that's just not just in terms of taste. It's got to be priced properly.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 10:55Speaker 00

  You've got to be able to deliver it consistently. They, like, if everybody wants it, they don't want to run out, so you've got to be able to continually run it. It's funny, I was listening to Sean Garlic this morning, Garlic's Pies. I don't know if you know that product. Sean Garlic played for Roosters, played for Souths, um, good footballer.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 00

  But he, he, he, he had a, a vision one day of just setting up one pie shop. And your point is very valid. His pies are very bloody good. And now, now he's, you know, he's across the board. He's got, um, you know, people are marketing his stuff everywhere. You know, you can buy them in, you know, um, servos and stuff like that. And everybody's sort of buying them and he's killing it. But the product is good.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  It's just not another shitty meat pie.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:36Speaker 00

  His meat pie is bloody good. It has a certain amount of meat in it for a start.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  And it has a good taste profile.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:42Speaker 00

  And it's, you know, got a good pastry. He's done a great job and it's pretty unusual that, let's call them celebrities, whether sports people or business people, whatever they are, it's, it's pretty unusual that they are successful with their product.

• 11:57Speaker 00

  And mainly because a lot of the times they think, I'll just produce whiskey. It doesn't matter how good it is or I'll just produce. I'll just put my name behind it. It'll kill it.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:05Speaker 00

  It doesn't work that way.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  And you're so spot on. And, and I'm so early, it's in its infancy, this business. We're only nine months in the market.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  And even the, the profile or, or the celebrity part of it might get you one bottle on a shelf. As you know, mate, from, from the whiskey.

• 12:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  The hardest thing is getting someone to come back and buy a second or third bottle. The first one, they might attract a bit of interest, a bit of intrigue. I wonder what that, that trying to get repeat sales, simple as that. So.

• 12:35Speaker 00

  It's got to be high, high quality. Well, let's just, let's just, you know, everyone knows who Adam Gilchrist is, but let's just go back to where you started, mate. Where were you born?

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Born in Bellangin.

• 12:45Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  Northern Tablelands of New South Wales.

• 12:47Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  Inland from Grafton.

• 12:49Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  Um, we weren't there long. I'll tell you the abbreviated, very funny story there, that, that the Bradman Foundation afforded the birthplace of every Australian men's test captain. The, the foundation went to the, the local council, wherever any captain was born and said, we'll go fifty fifty, do a bronze head and shoulders bust, put it in the town.

• 13:09Speaker 00

  Of the captain.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Of the captain, of the player. So Targa, Steve War, Bankstown and, you know, in the, in the civic park there and Bradman, obviously down in Barrow.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Bellangin went, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll, we'll do it, we'll do it. So I was there at the unveiling of this, and, and Bellangin's a small place, beautiful. But very small place. The Lord Mayor's up there spooking about the prodigal son coming home, you know, great to have him back and set him on his path. And, and I ran over to mum and I had to respond to get up and say thanks and everything. I said, mum, how long did we live here again after I was born? Six weeks.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  So it was great, it was great to go home, but, but to your point about your question, you're only born in one spot. So, yeah, others might claim you. We moved around regional New South Wales.

• 13:53Speaker 00

  Why is that?

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Mum and dad were teachers.

• 13:55Speaker 00

  Right.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  And then dad went into the administrative side. So he ended up director of education on the north coast of New South Wales. But, but we went from Bellangin to Dunee down in the Riverina. Then we went further south down to Denilquin, southern Riverina, so just north of Victoria.

• 14:10Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Then up to Lismore. So my primary, the two places where I really lived, primary school years in Danny, high school years up in Lismore, up on the far north coast. So.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  Both completely different. Um, you know, that, the, that's like a massive football down there at, um, Denilquin.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:27Speaker 00

  Especially these days.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:30Speaker 00

  Particularly, Lismore's a different, totally different sort of environment.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:35Speaker 00

  What did, did you play, were you playing cricket?

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Every sport possible. And that's the thing, regional New South Wales. Danny was perfect for primary school. It was, that was Australian Rules heartland. Um, so I was playing footy, Aussie Rules, soccer, tennis on a Saturday morning, then cricket Saturday afternoon, just whatever was on. And, and all the usual things of that, that age and that era. You know, on the bike out the door, first thing in the morning, come home when you're hungry. So.

• 15:03Speaker 00

  There would have been someone yelling out to you to come home.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:05Speaker 00

  Stand on the doorstep, come home.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I was younger to four kids. So that, you know, the, the elder siblings had paved the way. I got away with a lot more than what they were ever going to get away with. And I'd learnt well from them. But, um.

• 15:16Speaker 00

  How are your hands?

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Nah, good, good. My, I've got one that's bent, bends around a little bit there, but finger, but.

• 15:21Speaker 00

  Well, your right hand, index finger is a bit wonky.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  Never broken a finger.

• 15:25Speaker 00

  Really?

• 15:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:26Speaker 00

  That's pretty unusual.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  Um, no, never broke a finger, which was, you know, some guy, like heel's fingers were

• 15:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  were very brittle. Um, one knock and there's a break. But his problem was he'd break a finger and still not miss a game. He didn't want to give anyone another crack. So he just guts it out.

• 15:44Speaker 00

  Including you in the early days.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right. But, um, but, uh, back as Rod Marsh, my absolute childhood hero, his fingers, his hands were great. Uh, his knees were cooked by the time he finished.

• 15:56Speaker 00

  How are you going?

• 15:57Speaker 01

  Nah, good, I think. Yeah.

• 15:59Speaker 00

  But not, no big dramas?

• 16:00Speaker 01

  No.

• 16:01Speaker 00

  And not all the sun, the sun exposure?

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, nah, pretty good. Yeah. Well, I, yeah, get checked regularly and, um.

• 16:08Speaker 00

  Cause a lot of them end up having.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  A lot of, yeah.

• 16:10Speaker 00

  Especially the cancers.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  Skin kind of pub, Clark, he's just gone through that recently. He was a fairer skinned. I mean, it's just different strokes, different DNA, different.

• 16:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. So fortunately I've got through unscathed.

• 16:21Speaker 00

  Maybe it's a tequila.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  It might be. I've, I've, I often, I do it a bit tongue in cheek, but occasionally.

• 16:27Speaker 00

  It's medicine.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  I've been having this little shot where I put three drops of Tabasco sauce in it.

• 16:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:34Speaker 01

  And I, I do it in the pub when people are around and I get them in and tell them that's, you know, it's called a prairie fire. And it's about celebration and being in, and all this sort of preamble of just, just create a bit of fun, shared experience. And I feel always finished by saying, I don't know anyone who's had a prairie fire every day since March twenty twenty that's had Covid. And the look on their face is like, really?

• 16:57Speaker 00

  They believe you.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  And I don't, I don't confirm or deny it. I just, but, uh, but anyway, who knows? Yeah. Medicinal usage.

• 17:05Speaker 00

  I say that about whiskey too.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:07Speaker 00

  So like, i- i- if I, if we go back after school, just talk, cause you, you sort of hit first class cricket fairly late.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Hit relatively. Well, hit first class cricket probably, well, twenty one, twenty two.

• 17:19Speaker 00

  What I meant by that is.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  Australia, you're, you're spot on. I, I thought that's what you're alluding to. Um, yeah, I didn't play test match cricket until I was twenty seven.

• 17:27Speaker 00

  So you moved out of West Australia, didn't you?

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, came out of school, went straight, I enrolled to go to uni down at Wollongong. I was going to combine my, being a family of teachers, understanding the importance of education, my love of sports. I was going to go and try and be a PE teacher. Um, my older brother was that, both my older brothers were that actually. So, so I deferred uni for a year because I received a Cricket Academy Institute of Sport scholarship to give cricket a go, basically. That's roll the dice with that and see where it leads me. And never got back to uni to do the study. I'm, I am brand ambassador for the University of Wollongong. I have been for eighteen years, but, uh, but cricket took me on a journey that was beyond my wildest dreams, really. I went to Adelaide for the Cricket Academy

• 18:10Speaker 01

  out of school and then to Sydney for four years, played ten games for New South Wales, but I was in and out of the team and only as a batsman. Phil Emery was wicket keeper there and a very, very good wicket keeper. So I had to look elsewhere to get a crack. And that's when I went it over, over to Perth.

• 18:27Speaker 00

  But that was your call? That was?

• 18:29Speaker 01

  Oh, that, they rang me and inquired. And it's funny, you know, mate, because I was having to wait for Phil Emery in New South Wales to wicket keeper. And, you know, Ian Healy was so firmly entrenched. Every year some people would say, oh, Gilly, are you going to move, get away from New South Wales, go to Victoria, go to South Australia? And I'd sort of went, ah, this is home. I want to keep having a go here. And I was getting the odd game as a batsman, but not doing very well.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  But I never really contemplated going. The moment I picked up, I clearly remember picking up the phone and it was the CEO of the West Australian Cricket Association. And he said, oh, just like I just talked to you about next year. And in my mind, there and then I just went, I'm going to Perth. The fact that they were reaching out to me, you know, I wasn't going to someone else to ask.

• 19:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  It would just change the whole dynamic in my mind. Like, wow, they must want me. Like, and we chatted and we had to work through a few things, but I remember that in my mind that that's, that's my exit out to go have a crack. That was twenty two.

• 19:34Speaker 00

  Twenty two. That's pretty young for a, a regional kid, a country kid.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:39Speaker 00

  To be going over to Australia.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  Well, I knew, I knew time from home. When I was seventeen, doing my year twelve, HSC, I went to England for five months and did study by correspondence. But.

• 19:50Speaker 00

  Really?

• 19:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I received a cricket scholarship that, at the start of year twelve, uh, from a, an organisation that funds not only sporting scholarships, but the arts, um, you know, theatre, they, music, dance, whatever it may be, business scholarships.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  For some reason, they picked a cricket, country cricketer and mum, dad asked, could we defer that for a year till I finish year twelve? And they said, there's no guarantee you'll receive it again. So, God, I don't know how they did it. I couldn't imagine saying it to my seventeen year old son. But yeah, if you wanna go, go to the other side of the world for five months. You know, and this is predates mobile phones. Were they billet you? I lived with, believe it or not, the alcoholic club president of the cricket club. He had a house in Twickenham, um, great bloke, you know, one of those guys that gives himself to the club and running it and, and oh yeah, there's always a spare room for the overseas player to come and just crash out there. So I, I lived in the attic in a terrace house

• 20:49Speaker 01

  by Mork and Mindy where you pull the steps down and climb up every night up into your Good experience, huh? The most important year developmentally in my life, without doubt. What do you think happened to you in that? You learn about independence. Yeah. Learn about how to fend for yourself, how to cook, how to clean. You gotta wash your gear. Get around, yeah, how to get around London and the UK in public transport. Cause of, I mean, the scholarship covered your airfare and a little bit of, um, money to Welshy, the guy who I was living with, just to cover a bit of board and stuff. But other than that, that didn't, it's not like I was getting paid a weekly, you know, salary or anything like that. I played seventy four games of cricket in a hundred and fifty days. Wow. So, and then. A hundred and fifty days?

• 21:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So basically every second day. Yeah, yeah. Uh, and so I learnt a ton about cricket. That was invaluable, but it was more a reflective of the, the life. And, you know, the first month I cried myself to sleep as homesick as I've ever been. But by the fifth month, I didn't wanna come home. And yeah, that learnt what it's like to be in a club environment, um, and the support structures around that. Uh. And how'd you study? Yeah, I had to do it by correspondence. Every month, a big pack would turn up in the mail with. Oh, like physical packs? Yeah, yeah. With textbooks, exam papers, a lot of open book tests going on. But, so I got back six weeks before the final year twelve exam. Wow. Which is like about now.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  Swat, yeah, yeah. Swatted up big time there and, and got through and passed enough to get into uni. So it, it, no doubt it, it hampered possibly what I might have achieved in my, my final H S C if I was at home. But, but really, I, I think back now, that was just a magical year that really set me on a pathway to be prepared for things like moving to Perth. You know, it's amazing, you, you hear it all, but until you really stop and think about it, what you can learn from experiences along the way is so vitally important, isn't it? What would you say then about what you learned about taking risks? Cause that's a risk. Um, you either you might fail a H S C, um, it's a risk that you might miss your family so much, you could go rogue. But what did you learn about at an early age

• 23:02Speaker 01

  about managing risks? And what, what do you think that sort of, um, embedded in your thinking system, your brain relative to playing cricket at the highest level? Risk? Uh, see, I, I didn't, I don't remember thinking it was risky. I was just keen. So. When you're young, you just say, I'll do it. Yeah, I wanted to, wanted to check it out. Um, but I, I would say, so that experience then helped me, it was challenging when I moved to Perth, uh, at twenty two. I got put straight into the West Australian team there at the expense of a Pope Bodenham of

• 23:41Speaker 01

  Tim Zura, who, he was sort of heels his ear. He played a bit for Australia, a W A legend. Whoa. He got punted. Very parochial crowd over there. Yeah, totally. I got picked and a young, unknown bloke from New South Wales. I got booed, hammered on the ground. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. And small town Perth, so talkback radio, the local paper. Two B R. Everyone's, yeah, oh, they, they just belted me. And I got booed for the first few games. Oh, wow. Every time I went out there. How did you feel? Oh, pretty flat. Yeah. A bit like, shit, really? Is this what it's all about? But great team network around me. Um, but I think what I quickly realised, I just need to earn their respect. Yeah.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Now, I'm not gonna be Tim Zura. And then it happened again when I got picked for Australia. Ian Healy wanted one more test match. The public wanted to sign in, farewell him. They dropped heels and I got put in. Who was the captain at the time? Cause the captain in cricket of Australians, I would have had a say in that. At that time was Steve War. But my, well, my first, first entry into the Australian team was through the one day set. And I got booed onto the field cause heels got dropped. Wow. At the S C G. But that one was relatively easy because I had the previous experience to draw on. Yeah. And going back to the Tim Dohs, I've got to, I've got to earn the, the whacker crowd's respect. So the best way I can do that, I'm not gonna be Tim Zura, but I've just gotta knuckle down.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  When you say that, you're not gonna be Tim Zura. When you say that, do you mean you're not gonna be as good as him? Were you? No, I'm not gonna, in their mind, I'm not gonna be able to replace. Yeah, okay. Yeah, certainly not instantly. Yeah. So I've just gotta let them see that I deserve my position in that team. So that then just goes back to, okay, hard work. Perform. Just get the job done. Look, you know, control all those controllables that are in your power and your reach and just try to present and give it your best crack. That's premature at, uh, what were we talking about? Twenty two? That was twenty two. Twenty two, that's premature. Like, um, not many twenty two year olds can think that way. But probably, sorry, sorry. Going back to that, what you asked about the seventeen year old going over there in a, I guess possibly risky scenario. I think even then, through the homesickness

• 25:55Speaker 01

  and, and, um, and the challenges early on, it was just, why am I here? Why am I doing this again? And I, and I did ask myself that regularly through my career. Later in my career, the game had a hold of me. I didn't know, I was just bogged in this trough. Results weren't coming. Mentally, you're challenging yourself going, shit, have I been a hoax here? Have I bluffed my way through? Am I an imposter? Yeah. So even ten years into an international career, that can turn up, which I guess shows you the delicacy of the mindset at, at elite sport. But, um, but back, way back then in, in England, just saying, why am I here? Because I love cricket and I've got this opportunity

• 26:37Speaker 01

  to do it. So, okay, try to shed all that white noise and just, just lock in and, and get the job done. Cause that's what I'm trying to get to. Like, I'm trying to get to, I think people love to know about the mindset of extraordinary sports people, or just extraordinary people generally, and you're one of them. The mindset's, how does it develop? Or are you born with it? Or does it start with some sort of social, you know, something social that you sort of had to deal with when you were a kid, like a little kid? Or is it come from your mum and dad? Or is it how your mum and dad brought you up? But is it like, like, so, someone might say, well, my mum and dad said to me, no matter what I'm gonna do, I'll be good at it. Have a crack. Yeah. Um, you know, like mum and dad didn't tell me how to do something, but they never stopped me from doing anything. Yeah, yeah.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  I mean, I just, I think we, I'm, I'm trying to get sort of scratched around this. Like just trying to find, what is it that made Adam Gilchrist make that decision at twenty two? Um, well, I know, all I gotta do is perform and I've got to, and I've, that means, you know, I've got to train properly. I've got to prepare properly. I've got to perform properly on the day. Yeah. Um, I've got to have the right mindset. I can't let them, like if I was getting booed going out, I don't know how well I would perform in front of a crowd at the whacker or anywhere else to that matter. How do you block that shit out? Do you block it out or you just go with it? You, you, you do. And I think that's a bit more of a learned craft when you're exposed to, you know, your first Sheffield Shield games in front of three thousand people.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Then your first one day internationals in front of thirty thousand people. You build it. Yeah. So that comes with the confidence that you gain from being successful at one level. You know, you're then being stretched by being elevated up to the next level and you're sort of back at that sort of rookie stage again. And, and that creates a nice buzz. Um, keeps you sharp. But I think as far as the blocking out, two things come to mind, and I think they were probably learned. And, and I wasn't a deep thinker of the game throughout it. I wasn't a great tactician. I didn't think strategy much. Punter, Steve War did. Warnie was exceptional in strategy. Uh, but two things I think of about that,

• 28:45Speaker 01

  how, how to deal with it come to mind. Uh, in two thousand and one, we were in a, a one day final in, in Calcutta, playing India. Uh, a hundred thousand people there. I'm facing the first ball. And I thought to myself, God, this is gonna be crazy. This noise is gonna be deafening because they're pretty, pretty electric over there, the crowd. Bowler runs in, hit it for a single, I get up the other end and the umpire, Rudy Kudson says to me, oh God, Gil, he said, how loud was that? And I thought, I can't, I don't know actually, don't recall what it sounded like. Next ball, I'm at the non-striker's end. Bowler runs in, bowls to Matthew Hayden. And I'm like overwhelmed by how deafening this screaming.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  And what that told me is that when you're in on strike, there's a mechanism that you click into.

• 29:35Speaker 00

  It shuts over yourself.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  That just.

• 29:37Speaker 00

  For you, there is.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  For me, and I guess that's the challenge. Maybe that's the, the good players compared to the ones that don't get there. Is this the ability, skill wise, talent wise, fine lines, but maybe it's the ability to switch on and off and, and shut things out.

• 29:54Speaker 00

  Do you think that's something you've, you've got?

• 29:56Speaker 01

  I think, I, I on reflection, think there must be an element that that's been inherent all the way through because there's, you know, through junior cricket, there was some blokes that just hit the ball better than I did. Were so naturally talented, but just couldn't consistently get the performance. So that probably tells me maybe the, whether it's on field or off field or decision making off field or whatever, but um, I think, I do think that's probably something that's.

• 30:23Speaker 00

  Um. No, no.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  There early.

• 30:25Speaker 00

  There's someone bowling a ball at you at speed.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:27Speaker 00

  Um, a lot of times they're trying, gonna try and get to you and it's sort of a weapon.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:34Speaker 00

  This thing is coming at you.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  It's coming quick.

• 30:35Speaker 00

  In your mind, are you thinking about any danger or, or I've got to avoid this ball? I've got to make sure it doesn't hit me in the chin or whatever.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Against the really fast guys at any level, there is always that, that sense of physical intimidation and that fear of.

• 30:51Speaker 00

  And who was the most intimidating person you ever stood up against?

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Oh, bowling was the fastest.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  Shol Bakhtar from Pakistan, he bowled a hundred and sixty Ks an hour. So that's the fastest ever bowled, you know, Brett Lee.

• 31:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  In the nets, training, he's bowling.

• 31:06Speaker 00

  He was pretty quick, Brett Lee.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's one fifties. Yeah, you hit one sixty once.

• 31:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, that, they were the, the really quick guys. So, I mean, you're well protected. You've got helmet and thigh pattern and all gloves and all that, but there is just a little, that keeps you sharp. I can promise you that, that.

• 31:23Speaker 00

  You're on edge.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  Alive, yeah. So then you're just trusting your muscle memory from all the practice that you've done.

• 31:28Speaker 00

  Because there's some guys that make it look like it's, they slow the ball down. They sort of look like the, when they return the ball, they look like they're just slowing it down.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:36Speaker 00

  Um, other guys have got, fuck it, like it's a bit overwhelmed.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:39Speaker 00

  It, it, do you actually have a positive process in order to sort of condition your mind? Do you have a little like a?

• 31:46Speaker 01

  Routine?

• 31:47Speaker 00

  Breathe out or whatever. Yeah.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, again, that's the same. Probably the better players find a way to do that. Um, but it, it, I mean, really just watch the ball. Simple as that. Just try to, that's, that's the moment when the bowler's running in, just literally homing in your eyes on that. And it's um, and, and then trying to shut out what's happened, you know?

• 32:12Speaker 00

  Cause the.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Particularly where you're keeping.

• 32:14Speaker 00

  Yes, definitely.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  If I dropped the catch.

• 32:16Speaker 00

  Oh my god.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  It's like, oh, you know, and you've just got to get rid of it because the only, the only ball that matters is.

• 32:24Speaker 00

  The next one.

• 32:24Speaker 01

  Very next one. Yeah, the old saying. I was, we were playing a game in um, uh, in South Africa in a test match and it was around a time where there was a pretty nasty email started circulating from a newsletter to cricket. Uh, cricket fan base sort of online thing, um, questioning the parentage of my first child.

• 32:47Speaker 00

  What?

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Saying that it wasn't, I wasn't the father to, to Mel, my wife's child. It was Michael Slater, one of the teammates. So it's done the rounds and it was, yeah, laughable at first.

• 32:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  But Harry was only two months old and we were in South Africa.

• 33:02Speaker 00

  But you don't want to read it, that's for sure.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's sort of like, really? Anyway, we were playing day one in this um, game in South Africa. So clearly it was in my mind a bit and I just felt bad for Mel, you know, who knows who wants to believe what. And

• 33:19Speaker 01

  I went out to bat and on the, I thought, well, there's a bit of safety in this being out of Australia in South Africa. They went, and there was a big banner. These guys held up, said gilly, gilly, who's the father of your child?

• 33:30Speaker 00

  Oh my god.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  And I've seen that. I'm out there trying to play international cricket from a country. Uh, Jarrett Callis came in, bowled the first ball and it bowled a bounce and I played what is possibly the worst cricket stroke ever seen. And I half ducked, half lifted the bat, hang up the ball, hit the bat, went up and it, and it fell safe. And I sort of walked away and was a bit ruffled and, you know, crowd yelling stuff out. I got survived through to stumps, not out and obviously come back the next day to bat, but I went up the change room, found a bloody cubicle out the bat and actually got a bit emotional, pretty upset. And then my best mate, who's actually a partner in our tequila company from school, best man at each other's wedding.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  He was watching this on TV and he, he emailed me and a quote, and he knows I like quotes. And he said, wherever you are, be there. And I reckon it's one of the great quotes.

• 34:27Speaker 00

  See you present.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Whatever it is, like, so he could see, he would have known my head would be spinning about this issue off field. And I love it. And it's a bit back to what we were talking about, about how you deal with that moment. Like, whatever you're doing at that point in time, make that the most important thing in your life. Cause nothing else matters at that time.

• 34:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  So if it's sitting down, having a chat or reading a bedtime story of your kid and you're sort of already thinking about, oh, what's tomorrow? I've got a nine o'clock meeting. You know, and all the kid wants is your attention to read him a story, but that little bit, that, break that down into sporting context in cricket. That, that next ball is the only thing that matters in your life because you can't do anything about anything else at that time.

• 35:08Speaker 00

  Can you do that? Can you do, did you do that?

• 35:10Speaker 01

  I, I started to, that, from, from that moment, and that's two thousand and two. So I was well into my international career when John sent me that. So I learnt, you know, I'm halfway through my international career, but I was learning as I went along.

• 35:25Speaker 00

  Learning techniques.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:26Speaker 00

  Cause I, I was sitting there with Elvis Smiley, who's um, a great golfer, uh, won the live golf in Adelaide a little while ago. And I said, what, what do you do to sort of distract?

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:37Speaker 00

  All the sort of demons that'd be floating around trying to say, don't muff this shot, which by the way, I would definitely would.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:43Speaker 00

  Um, you know what he did? He says to me, he, he has this technique, which a psychologist showed him. Whereby he just does this with his fingers.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 35:51Speaker 00

  And what it does is apparently, um, in order to do that properly, you've got to block out any other thought process. If you're thinking about something that's pissing you off or upsetting you or potentially challenging you.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 36:03Speaker 00

  Um, you can't think about the two things at once.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  Sorry, Mark, can't hear you.

• 36:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Conversation finished.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:09Speaker 00

  But like, cause everybody thinks that, um, you've got a superpower.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:14Speaker 00

  And there's no real superpower.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  No.

• 36:16Speaker 00

  There's just little, little tricks and techniques that you develop over time that work for you. Like your mate John sending you the thing, that's now something, well, them was something that you started to do. So hang on, that's right. And I will be in the present.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:28Speaker 00

  It's all about getting in the present moment.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  Do you meditate?

• 36:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, every day.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  Transcendental or?

• 36:32Speaker 00

  No, no, I, I, I used to do, um, I, I, these days I just do box breathing. I used to do, um, uh, what they call Nadi Shodhana, which is the Indian one where you breathe through one side of your nose and then you breathe out, then you change like that. You do this all the time. I used to do that a lot.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:46Speaker 00

  Um, but I find I don't need to do that now, but I just have this um, meditation process, just basic box breathing, but it's a little bit more complicated than that, but I do it every single day, at least three times a day.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 00

  For about 10 minutes.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  Yes. Now, I'm not, I'm not surprised to, to hear that. And uh, not just that you do it, but that you do it consistently every day. Um, people who are into meditation, just, they are so committed to it, aren't they? And I, I find even now, and maybe it's because I've relaxed a bit from my competitive days at elite sport, but to, to stay focused in meditation.

• 37:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  Cause my mind just.

• 37:18Speaker 00

  You do, you do it now?

• 37:19Speaker 01

  No, I, my wife's really into it. Um, my manager's into it.

• 37:23Speaker 00

  You might be to meditate and you don't know it though, you know that?

• 37:25Speaker 01

  Uh, you, you. I feel like I can switch off pretty easily and.

• 37:27Speaker 00

  Well, that's, that's, that's meditation, just switching off. Can you block everything out or not have everything uh, floating through your head and then sort of uh, noises in there?

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:35Speaker 00

  Can you just chill?

• 37:36Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 37:37Speaker 00

  That is meditation. I mean, I've got to, I can't, I've got to go through a process to do it, a technique.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:41Speaker 00

  But some people can just do it. Some people can just, and give your brain a rest.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:45Speaker 00

  It's all about giving your, your, your, your brain a rest, the neurons a rest and stopping from ping, ping, ping, ping. Cause then you can't go into proper thought processes. And I find a lot of really elite sports people can do it.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:57Speaker 00

  Without medit, without actually doing a formal meditation. You'll probably um, perfected these things in your, in your sporting career. And probably is carrying through to every other part of your life, including, you know, this, this sounds a bit mundane, but including the ability to stay married. You know, there's a lot going on in the world and it's, it's a hard thing to stay with one person your whole life.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 38:19Speaker 00

  Which you've managed to do. And um, and you know, and by the way.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  Maybe it's because we've had so much time apart that keeps it fresh with touring the world.

• 38:27Speaker 00

  That may work too.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:29Speaker 00

  But it also can work the other way.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:31Speaker 00

  Keeping relationships together, for me anyway, is, is a hall, generally speaking, is the hallmark of a very successful person.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 38:42Speaker 00

  Do you ever think about that, outside of your cricketing life, you know, you've been one of the greatest in success in that regard, sporting life? Do you ever reflect on how you've kept your family together and you've provided for your family and uh, and I'm saying your wife's done provided for your family too, but like.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:00Speaker 00

  You ever think about that stuff?

• 39:02Speaker 01

  As I say, people say, what's valuable to you, that's instantly where you go in your mind, isn't it?

• 39:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  And particularly now with kids growing into adult children and carving into their own careers and pathways.

• 39:14Speaker 00

  You've got four kids?

• 39:15Speaker 01

  Four kids, yeah, yeah, twenty four down to fifteen.

• 39:18Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  Um, but yeah, and Mel's, I take, you know, great, um, pride in the, the forming the team that we've formed and understanding each other on how we go about managing it. Mel's exceptional in that regard, in, in being, and I mentioned she does meditate because she finds it hard to, to switch off by way of just relaxing because she's thinking so much about so many things. Yeah, ranging from, you know, school stuff to kids getting around stuff to, um, personal life or, um, social life stuff that she's got to coordinate or stuff for me now, working heavily in the business, um,

• 40:00Speaker 01

  with El Aguero, cause when, when we started, I said, will you do it with me? And she said, I'd love to.

• 40:05Speaker 00

  Oh, she's doing this with you?

• 40:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's, she's dietitian trained. She had two private practices running as a dietitian and was.

• 40:11Speaker 00

  As well whilst, whilst, whilst you were playing cricket?

• 40:13Speaker 01

  Up until we had kids and then she let them go because she knew that I was going to be away. And she wanted to focus on being a mum. Um, but she was about to go back into that and start a practice again. But then she went, oh, no, let's give this a go. So, but her ability to manage and basically run our family in, in my absence in that regard, I'll be forever grateful for.

• 40:36Speaker 00

  What, what do you think it is, Gillie, like with a low that you have, like a good cricketer's got to travel a lot. I mean, there's, there's, and you wait for long periods of time.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 40:45Speaker 00

  Um, what's the secret sauce? Like?

• 40:47Speaker 01

  We, we just try to balance it up. So if we were on a, a twelve week tour, Mel with the kids, we, we tried to never go more than four weeks apart. So if it's a twelve week tour, she'd come in the middle for a month.

• 41:02Speaker 00

  Bring the kids with her?

• 41:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. She's done some, done some treks around this world. Um, but yeah, just try to break it down. Going for too long without seeing each other, that, that started to annoy us.

• 41:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  And then the other time too, there was no need to go the whole time because that's no like, I mean, I'm there trying to work.

• 41:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  It's not much fun. It wasn't that glamorous for them. You know, you think hotels, airports, um, trying to cram kids into a room. I mean, what Cricket Australia do now for the players, partners and families is next level compared to what was going on when we were playing. Yeah. And the year before that, they did nothing. They didn't even acknowledge them. Um, might be a bit harsh saying that, but, um,

• 41:47Speaker 01

  but yeah, we just tried to balance it. And the last thing you want to do is on tour too much. Two thousand and five, Mel thought that I really wanted her. We had two kids at the time.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  One of her and the kids around the whole time. So we planned for that. I had the worst tour ever. Um, I was struggling and that's that Peter's home in the game had a hold of me and I couldn't sort of break out of it. And we fielded in this test match, I dropped a catch off Michael Vaughan, second over of the day by stumps. He's a hundred and eighty not out. Well, I dropped about three other catches that day. I was just battling in every way. I got off the team, um, the team bus at the hotel, went back into the room, opened the door and walked in and Mel's standing there with blood all over her hand.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Where she'd cut herself in the sink trying to wash up a, a glass bottle to feed any our one year old and she was it. And I realised there and then I was trying to be a, a batsman, a wicket keeper, a vice captain, a husband and a father. And I was doing a shit job at all of them. Well, I wasn't hitting the target in any of it. And we sat down that night and I said, do you want to go home? And she said, well, you want me to stay down? Well, it's probably, might be time because I can focus. And she went, I want to get out of here. I've been wanting to go for a few weeks now, but. So that we should communicate a bit better, but, but the intention was, well, it was well intended, but,

• 43:17Speaker 01

  um, just overstated. So we just tried to get the balance right. And I reckon generally we did. That was the one time where we didn't. And it affected my performance and.

• 43:25Speaker 00

  And what happened to your performance after that?

• 43:27Speaker 01

  Oh, there's.

• 43:28Speaker 00

  How long did it take?

• 43:29Speaker 01

  Nah, there was one more test in that series after and I, I didn't do a huge amount in that test match. But, um, but it was a great lesson for the, what I played another three years after that. And we, we got back to that, that balance and, uh.

• 43:45Speaker 00

  Do you think that's a, that's the worst period in your athletic career?

• 43:48Speaker 01

  Two thousand and five into six, yeah. Yeah. It's about a twelve month period in my mind. Others will, wouldn't have been aware of it, but in my mind, it was just in this, I was caught in this vacuum where I just couldn't sort of break free. Um, opposition teams that felt like were suddenly formulating amazing plans to get me out. I was probably getting myself out as much as anything, but yeah, it had me, had good grip.

• 44:13Speaker 00

  I mean, because we see it when every time a Australian team gets selected, um, there's always one or two aren't in good form.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 44:20Speaker 00

  And, uh, it's nearly like the media is, and you're in the media, but like it's not like the media is wishing that the individual, like minus like, well, that guy, he hasn't been playing, you know, hasn't been getting the data. The data's not coming through in terms of performance. Um, should he get selected? Um, is that stuff that you, as a player, that are you thinking about that? Do you know the media's talking about this sort of stuff? Do you read the, the papers and stuff?

• 44:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was a reader. Oh, I mean, I loved reading it when it was good. So I probably had to balance a ledger up if it wasn't so good, but.

• 44:53Speaker 00

  Well, you would actually go looking for the.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, a little bit, uh, more just out of interest.

• 44:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, but if they're saying like, uh, Gillie's crap of a mind.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Well, that's the thing. I, as a general rule, I, I was very fortunate. I, I didn't ever go through that. Period. I'd say a twelve month period where I was struggling, but there was no concerted effort by the press or commentary saying, Gillie's got to go, not even close.

• 45:16Speaker 00

  You were good.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  But, so I didn't ever have to deal with that. A lot of the guys, um, most successful Australian cricketers, in fact, it could be said across the board, debut as youngsters, go well and then have a fall and get dropped. Go away, learn a bit more, come back and then nail their career. That generally, you know, Steve War, Ricky Ponting, Glenn McGrath, even Wornie, played a few test matches, then missed one out and then came back a better player. Mark War, uh, Hayden, all those guys, Langer. Uh, I was probably an exception to the rule and it probably goes back to I didn't debut in test cricket till I was older.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  And then I went through ten years without being out of the team, which, um, so I didn't go through a period of time where I had to deal with being dropped or being left out. Uh, but there was that passage where I was internally probably creating noise that.

• 46:15Speaker 00

  This is more you.

• 46:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:16Speaker 00

  Are you a hard marker on yourself?

• 46:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was going to say, people ask about pressure or expectation. The only one, only bit of that that mattered to me was internally. Like it does not matter what everyone else is thinking. If I could, tick a box, say I'm prepared well enough, caught the balls, hit the balls, eaten what I, you know, then I'm, I'm right. Doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, but.

• 46:39Speaker 00

  Who is really good at not being a hard marker, but at the same time maintain top level? Wornie, I mean, is he, was he a hard marker on himself? I knew play with this guy, so.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, a whole lot of my cricketing careers, we keep a shame on, um. No, I can't, no one jumps to mind. Everyone was pretty, pretty demanding of themselves and their own internal expectations. Um.

• 47:05Speaker 00

  Were, were, were any of them ever?

• 47:07Speaker 01

  Mark War would give the perception because he was so naturally talented and relaxed. Everyone thought, oh, Steve War's a hard worker junior, just happens too easily. But yeah, maybe he was certainly outwardly less demonstrative of, to how he was feeling, but, um, no.

• 47:27Speaker 00

  Just better at hiding it.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. I can't think of too many at all that jumped to mind that weren't really demanding of themselves and had high expectations.

• 47:34Speaker 00

  Do you think that's, that's a hallmark of, um, a high, high performer? Someone who's demanding of themselves, has high expectations for what they should be doing?

• 47:41Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I do. I think.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  I think that question about nerves, always good to have some nerves, nervousness, because that shows to yourself that it means something to you, whatever it is you're doing.

• 47:55Speaker 00

  Could you see it in the dressing room before you went out? I mean, could you see in the sheds? Could you see, like, let's, some of the great teams you played, they're all great teams, but some of the teams had some, like, really superstars.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:07Speaker 00

  One period there, you're with, like, an amazing.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  We had six, seven Hall of Fame cricketers.

• 48:11Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 48:12Speaker 01

  I see international Hall of Fame in one unit.

• 48:15Speaker 00

  Nearly the best of all time. And could you see in the room how they were feeling?

• 48:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I think we all knew each other's personality pretty well.

• 48:25Speaker 00

  Could you look across the room and say, Ricky Ponting's there and you could say, he's, he looks tense?

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 48:32Speaker 00

  How do you?

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Tense or locked in?

• 48:34Speaker 00

  Locked in?

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:35Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Rick, Rick was, Rick's, everyone thinks Ricky's, you know, by the end of his cap, he got grumpy and he was too serious. And he always seemed to have a smirk on his face. He's one of the funniest blokes you ever meet. His sense of humour, right from when we were seventeen, eighteen years of age, he's just, he's as cheeky as it gets. He was always up to, you know, pranks and, but he could just lock in.

• 48:58Speaker 00

  And what would they do to say someone like you? Would you then think, I'm not trying to do that too? Did you get some sort of inspiration?

• 49:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, you, you tinker with different things, but I think I quickly went just to try to, so I was a bit more lighter. As I say, I wasn't a deep thinker about it. I was just like, okay, I've done all my training. As they say in footy terms, play what's in front of you.

• 49:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  Go out there.

• 49:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, eyes up.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that was probably more me. Same with a guy like Andrew Simons. He was just so fun and relaxed and casual, as hard a marker on himself as anyone, if he didn't deliver. But rest of it was just, that was like you were playing backyard cricket with a bunch of mates, playing with Roy. And Langer was really, he had a strong intensity, but is a delightfully fun, warm character.

• 49:48Speaker 00

  What about Warnie?

• 49:49Speaker 01

  Warnie was just, seemed like a different league to all of us in everything he did, like the profile was bigger. You know, he was the lead. We were, you know, supporting actors.

• 50:04Speaker 00

  In the room?

• 50:04Speaker 01

  In the room, he, he, he just could fluctuate. He could be, you know, ridiculously relaxed. And then at other times, if something got in his mind, something like an opponent or a, a decision or, you could tell he had something that he was absolutely locked in on and was just going to go out there and execute that, that plan to try to, to, to bring that downfall.

• 50:30Speaker 00

  What's it like to be in that environment? I mean, like, you must have felt confident, like, every time he went out, like.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  Magic. Walking out with those blokes beside you.

• 50:39Speaker 00

  That's what I'm saying, like, it's like, it's like having eight Wally Lewis's in your side or something, like, you know, how can you lose?

• 50:45Speaker 01

  It's crazy. Yeah. I say highlight of my career was the wicket keeper Warnie. So you do that for an over and then you go out the other end and Glenn McGrath's running into bowling and Warnie's at first slip. So, uh, it was so much fun. And it was really well led by John Buchanan, the coach.

• 51:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  Who, a lot of people say, ah, it must have been easy to coach them, they're superstars.

• 51:07Speaker 00

  Might be harder.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  He had to keep us incentivised. He kept us focused, made sure complacency never came in.

• 51:12Speaker 00

  And also to keep everybody down and not think you're too good for the team. Like you're sort of manager, man manager?

• 51:18Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 51:18Speaker 00

  Or a person manager?

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 51:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know, I've often wondered, as a wicket keeper, when you're, when you've got McGrath bowling at you or you've got Shane Warne bowling at you, do you have a different approach as wicket keeper for the ball?

• 51:34Speaker 01

  Oh, obviously different styles of bowlers, even within the quick bowlers. So you've got McGrath, but then you've got Brett Lee. So McGrath was never super fast.

• 51:43Speaker 00

  But Brett was.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  Then Brett Lee was more, a little bit more erratic.

• 51:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:46Speaker 01

  And wild.

• 51:47Speaker 00

  Well, that's what I mean, he's erratic because it might just go a bit wide of the, of the batsman.

• 51:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, whereas McGrath was metronomic. He just came in and same spot every time. And that's how he got all his weaks, just death by a thousand cuts.

• 51:59Speaker 00

  Eventually he gets you.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. He was ruthless.

• 52:02Speaker 00

  You're just waiting for your one mistake.

• 52:04Speaker 01

  Yep. And then, and Warnie benefited so much from, from pigeon just being so consistently tight, build the pressure. And then Warnie comes in and just, they try to do something against the spin bowler because it's slower and they've got time to think about it too much, but.

• 52:20Speaker 00

  And what are you doing standing back there though?

• 52:21Speaker 01

  Trying to concentrate.

• 52:23Speaker 00

  You're talking to, you know, his slips and everything like that?

• 52:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's good, some good chat and good banter going around.

• 52:28Speaker 00

  Like, what, what's his next?

• 52:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it could be about anything. And again, this goes back to that switching on, switching off mentality. And that was my biggest challenge, wicket keeping wise. I can't ever remember missing a catch or a stumping where if I asked myself, was I switched back on, I could say yes. So that, I'd, you know, I'd fumble something or miss a catch or whatever and I'd think, I was still thinking about what Punt was talking about or what Haddos said or whatever. But yeah, there's some banter where you want the batsman to hear a little bit.

• 53:04Speaker 00

  I was going to ask you about sledging.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  So sledging, yeah, but I was never, I didn't back away from sledging, but I hated starting it.

• 53:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  Because as soon as the words left my mouth, I was nervous that I was either going to stuff up, dropping a catch or get out.

• 53:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, like Tama.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I was, I was a shocker for it. But if someone had a crack at me, I wasn't going to back away.

• 53:23Speaker 00

  Would batsmen sledge back?

• 53:24Speaker 01

  Oh mate, Haddos was ridiculous.

• 53:26Speaker 00

  Really?

• 53:27Speaker 01

  He'd go looking for a fight. And I'm at the other end going, mate, just don't upset me.

• 53:31Speaker 00

  But how do they do it? Like, how does a batsman start that? He turns around to the wicket keeper and he's like, fuck your shit.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  He'll turn around to show a back door. I'm on strike, Haddos is down the other end, show walks past, say, show, fuck, you're bowling slow today.

• 53:45Speaker 00

  Really?

• 53:46Speaker 01

  And like show just starts, steam coming out, so runs in twice as fast as I am.

• 53:51Speaker 00

  To you.

• 53:51Speaker 01

  We don't need to, we don't need to, Brian Lara was one that loved to fight.

• 53:56Speaker 00

  Did you play against Brian Lara, did you?

• 53:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:57Speaker 00

  Wow, wow.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, he, there's a famous test in Antigua in two thousand and three where Steve War was our captain. He said, guys, we don't, we don't pick a fight. Don't sledge Lara. He loves it. He goes looking for it. Don't antagonise him. So that's the match plan. No, just be quiet. Just try to get him out. Because Brian loved picking a fight. Because it just got the juice of fun. So he walks out, before he's even taken guards, Tuggers up there calling him. Hop and into him, what are you on about, mate? What are you doing? And he peeled off a hundred off about eighty balls. He smoked us. But yeah, so you've got to know your opponent, know who you're targeting. But it was great, great times, great, great characters. And yeah, and to walk out, as I say, shoulder to shoulder with those blokes was bloody good fun.

• 54:42Speaker 00

  Like, I mean, I'm sure you've got many, but like, what's something that just really stands out for Adam Gilchrist in his cricketing career?

• 54:50Speaker 01

  There's not one moment. We, we won three World Cups in a row.

• 54:54Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  And, and twice we won sixteen test matches in a row. I don't reckon they'll ever get beaten, those records.

• 55:01Speaker 00

  That'd be a record, some sort of record?

• 55:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. The, the most ever was eleven in a row by the Great West Indies of the nineteen eighties and the nineteen nineties. You know, V. Richard, Clive Lloyd, Joel Garner, all that. So we did sixteen in a row. Sounds a bit self indulgent, don't it? But from a, a team achievement. And I guess the other one, in two thousand and four, we won a test series in India. Australia hadn't done it for thirty one years prior and they haven't done it since. So that probably is the jewel in the crown moment for that group of players. That was, that was like the holy grail.

• 55:36Speaker 00

  Today as a commentator, you mean, you're obviously analysing, you know, you're one of the great analysts when it comes to cricket. I mean, you're a bit like Kuba Kronk when it comes to rugby league, like, I mean, people love to see how you unpick, unpick the game. Where, who, who's the, the bomb when it comes to, like, international sense, a nation sense in cricket today? Is it India? Who is it? What are we talking about? Like, who's the?

• 56:01Speaker 01

  Oh, the, the, the most challenging position?

• 56:04Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 56:05Speaker 01

  India in India is seemingly been nigh impossible. As I say, we've done it once in fifty odd years.

• 56:12Speaker 00

  Yeah. Why is that?

• 56:13Speaker 01

  Oh, just the conditions are so foreign to what we, we have here.

• 56:17Speaker 00

  What are the conditions?

• 56:18Speaker 01

  The pitch conditions, you know, it's all about the spinning, turning ball, not fast, bouncy conditions, the heat, the, the crowd, the noise, you know, you've got to learn how to deal with that. The adulation from the fans.

• 56:33Speaker 00

  Is mad.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  Is crazy. And you never, the only place you get respite from it is in your hotel room.

• 56:39Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  You walk down into the foyer, it's packed.

• 56:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, autographs.

• 56:44Speaker 01

  It is manic. It's unbelievable. It's, it's fun. It's proven quite bountiful for, from a commercial point of view for cricketers. Um, I've been included in that, but it is something you need to learn how to find a way. I mean, even in your hotel room, the blokes that bring room service in are going to ask for a selfie and an autograph.

• 57:03Speaker 00

  No.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  And stand around. You've sort of got to go, guys, it's time to go now, boys, the session's over. But it's magical. It's, it's unreal. But yeah, that, that's, that's a tough place to play. And Australia had their, in what, Feb, Feb of twenty twenty seven? And for this group of players. You know, your Pat Cummins, Steve Smith and the like, that, that generation. This is their legacy tour.

• 57:29Speaker 00

  You mean this is getting towards their period?

• 57:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, there. And then they go to England for the Ashes. They haven't won the Ashes in England. They've levelled the series over there, but they've never won it. So this is a huge.

• 57:41Speaker 00

  Twenty twenty seven is a big.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  Twenty twenty seven, it's their opportunity to leave behind a legacy

• 57:48Speaker 01

  on par with other generations. Not saying they've failed. If they don't, they've played a bloody successful cricket team.

• 57:54Speaker 00

  But it doesn't seem to have the, they're not as swashbuckling as you guys were.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  Interesting you say that because in two thousand and four, when we got it done, we had to put away all that, you know, the swashbuckling attitude, the, the aggressive.

• 58:09Speaker 00

  I was gonna say the aggression.

• 58:10Speaker 01

  Play.

• 58:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 58:11Speaker 01

  We had to park that.

• 58:12Speaker 00

  Oh, really?

• 58:12Speaker 01

  Go into what was pretty much boring. We had to be almost defensive.

• 58:19Speaker 00

  Wind by inches.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  Some offence to come into it.

• 58:21Speaker 00

  Right, okay.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  So we, we, we learnt so much from two thousand and one when we were there, where we were the brash, arrogant Aussies playing, you know, going swinging from the hip and bowling fast. And we totally changed our tactics.

• 58:32Speaker 00

  Why did you do that?

• 58:33Speaker 01

  Oh, we just, we learnt and it didn't work in I one and it hadn't been working for thirty years.

• 58:37Speaker 00

  Was that a coach, did the coach bring that in or did?

• 58:40Speaker 01

  Oh, our leadership group, we, we, we sorted it out. Yeah, yeah, Buchanan, Warn, Ricky, myself, Ricky was injured. So I captained the first component of that tour. But, you know, everyone goes, oh, you're the only captain to ever get it done there. But it wasn't my tactics, it was our tactics, very much so. And it was learnings from three years prior. And then, but we had to tell Warnie, you're not going to be the attacking strike weapon on this tour. You're going to be the holding, almost negative bowler, just to build pressure to let the fast bowlers.

• 59:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:12Speaker 01

  Get the, so the reverse of what I told you before. And he played his role beautifully.

• 59:16Speaker 00

  So that is a reverse of what you said before. Because, you know, you were saying Glenn McGrath would be.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  Beneficiary of Warnie.

• 59:22Speaker 00

  Yes. And then, and, and then Warnie would just, you know, throw them a crazy one and they, they might do something wild and they get out. So you're now saying that they reverse it.

• 59:30Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 59:31Speaker 00

  You just keep getting him plotting away and.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 59:34Speaker 00

  Maybe build a bit of confidence.

• 59:35Speaker 01

  Hold the fort there.

• 59:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 59:36Speaker 01

  And then the guys will attack from the other end.

• 59:38Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. And we needed buying. That's, that's a big thing to say to a bloke like Warnie when he's.

• 59:42Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 59:43Speaker 01

  Already taken six hundred Test wickets.

• 59:45Speaker 00

  What does Warnie say? Like, what does he, how did he respond? Because I mean, he's a pretty strong headed guy.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, he is. Yeah. No, he, he, he knew there was a sensibility about it. You know, it was a sensible option to take.

• 59:59Speaker 00

  Sort of, let's call it, I don't want to say the words, probably not really relevant to someone like Shane Warne. But he sort of was compliant to it. He sort of said.

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:00:05Speaker 00

  It makes sense.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. You could tell deep down in his mind, he was still thinking, I'm, I'm going to fire a few shots here and, and I'll make an impact. And he did. He did. If there was a little window opened up where we could start to get a bit more aggressive, he, you know, he naturally just slid in there. But, uh, but yeah, they all bought in. Um, the team in its entirety. Uh, Buck managed us really, really well through that, that tour. And yeah, we, we got, got what we sort of had put our heart to.

• 1:00:32Speaker 00

  I've, I've been lucky to have a number of, you know, Australian great cricketers come through on our podcast. But actually as a, as a kid, I have to tell you now, but as a kid, I was a wicket keeper. I wasn't, I wasn't very good cricket. I was, I was just a school.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, your hands.

• 1:00:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, my, my hands are more broken from boxing, but like.

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:50Speaker 00

  But like, but I was, but to be able to sit here, two of my great heroes in the cricketing world is Heels and you. And it's been such a thrill to be able to sit here, talk to you, like in, in this sense and go through this process. Um, it's been, and what you've done for, you know, the spectators of cricket in, in Australia and probably the rest of the world for the amount who've been watching, particularly Indians would probably love you, but, um, I, I want to congratulate you on it. And, uh, I think what Australians like about you is your sort of laconic nature. I mean, it looks like Lismore and Nillaguan and everywhere else, hasn't really left you.

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:01:26Speaker 00

  You're still the same kid as an adult. And so, so congratulations on a wonderful career and, uh, good luck with this stuff, mate. And I, once, once again, you've got to explain to me how I pronounce it. El Aquero?

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  El Aquero, yeah.

• 1:01:41Speaker 00

  El Aquero.

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  Well, technically, Ela Quero.

• 1:01:44Speaker 00

  Ela Quero.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  But we're Australian, so we hit the cue. El Aquero.

• 1:01:47Speaker 00

  El Aquero. Get it, India.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  Good on you, mate.

• 1:01:50Speaker 00

  Good on you, mate. Thanks, Gilly.