Gillespie comes good

Australia’s Jason Gillespie has had a rotten time of it recently. He’s been a stalwart of the Australian side, but not 6 months ago, many pundits were predicting his demise from the game. In last year’s Ashes series he was ineffective, struggling for wickets. Although he was frequently a thorn in England’s side as an immovable tail-order batsman, that was not looking enough to keep him in the side. Thankfully his fortunes appear to have turned.

Not only has he been taking wickets (against South Africa and in the current series against Bangladesh) but he’s topped that by becoming only the third ever nightwatchman* to score a test century. Admittedly it is only Bangladesh, and he’s not going to be replacing Ricky Ponting in the batting order, but a test century is still a test century, and considering that the Bangladeshi bowlers had the Australian top order in all sorts of trouble in the first test of the series, it is certainly no mean feat.

This is great news for Gillespie. In the last few years he has constantly lived in the shadows of Australia’s other bowlers. Shane Warne doesn’t even need mentioning, but Glenn McGrath, in my book the best strike bowler in the game and Brett Lee, a cocky, confident, bolshy out and out fast bowler who has cemented his place in the team. Gillespie has always seemed like the quiet, other bowler, who just toiled away, got a few wickets, but never really got the recognition he deserved. Maybe this will change things for him.

* In test cricket, a night watchman is a batsman who goes into bat well above his normal batting position. He is normally used if a wicket is lost in the closing overs of a day, and a tail-end batsman is sent in to “protect” a top-order batsman from having to face only a few overs