Cricket legend Adam Gilchrist reveals the moment he wrote: ‘I hate this game’
On the eve of the Ashes, Fox Cricket host Adam Gilchrist recalls the incomparable pressure of failing to perform for your country – and the story behind an unlikely career switch.
You’re a bona fide legend of Australian cricket and the host of Fox Cricket’s coverage of the Ashes series. When did you get the crazy idea to go into the tequila business? It’s been an idea I’ve had for a long while, probably 10 years. It really did start as a lighthearted sort of idea, you know, “Imagine having a crack at that …” I have loved tequila for a lot longer than people who are trending on it now – it seems to be quite in vogue, but I was a keen consumer of it when people didn’t pay much attention to it, other than just as a late-night shot that cranks up a party, or wipes out a party, one or the other. When my wife Mel said to me, “Look, you’re talking a lot about this, either do it or stop talking about it”, that felt like a green light.
The brand name is El Arquero, which translates to “The Keeper”. Nice touch. What’s the best way to drink it? I love sipping on it. Absolutely neat, no ice, so that nothing else influences the flavour. It raises eyebrows, but truly, with premium tequila, there’s so much to be enjoyed and savoured.
George Clooney famously made a bucket of money creating and then selling his tequila brand, Casamigos, to Diageo. Are you positioning yourself as the Australian George Clooney? Ha! That’d be nice. Clooney led the way, and what he achieved certainly grabbed my attention. What I will say is I’m very, very aware of the scepticism around celebrity-endorsed products, let alone in this particular category in the US. I’m not here as a brand ambassador, I’m the major shareholder and founder. As for Clooney, well, one of my sons has graduated from WAAPA [Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts] and another is currently at WAAPA – they both want to be actors. I’ll leave that to them.
But you have forged a career in front of the camera through your work in commentary. Did you ever picture that for yourself? [Fox Sports managing director] Steve Crawley, who was then at Channel 9, was the first to ask me to come and do commentary. I did one Test match and one T20 international, which happened to be David Warner’s debut, and it was pretty exciting, but I came away from that experience thinking I didn’t enjoy it that much, and I really didn’t think I was very good. You see, when I was playing, I didn’t think about the game in a tactical, analytical sense.
What do you mean?! You captained the country! I was more of a play-what’s-in-front-of-you guy, whereas Ricky [Ponting] and guys like Justin Langer and Steve Waugh, they were all very deep thinkers of the game. And Warnie, he was a real strategist. I was sort of just trying to concentrate on the ball and switch off and think about what else is going on in life. Really, it was only when I ended up at Channel 10 when the Big Bash launched, doing commentary with Ricky and Mark Waugh, Damien Fleming – guys I really got along with – and I could relax into my own style. That’s when I fell in love with it.
Do you have fond memories of dealing with Richie Benaud, Bill Lawry, Tony Greig and Ian Chappell? As players we did not have much to do with them at all. I remember asking them to join us in the sheds after a game and their reply was generally, “We appreciate the invite but we’ve had our time, this is your time.” I’ve got to say I didn’t understand it then, but I certainly understand now why you need a bit of distance from the players.
Do you think broadly commentary has evolved to become less staid and maybe more “fun”? I’ve just been in a seven-seater car with Ravi Shastri, Mark Waugh, our statistician, our wardrobe staff and all this luggage, and they stuck me right down the back like the family dog on a holiday. That wasn’t too much fun.
How confident are you that Australia will win the Ashes? I’m not going to do a McGrath and predict 5-0! England haven’t won here for a long time and it is a challenging place for touring teams to come. They take on the conditions, as well as the opposition. But these two teams are really well matched up. If England start well I think they might be able to shake things up. I do feel Australia have their nose in front. But I don’t say that with any certainty. Who knows? That’s the exciting part.
Another interesting subplot for the cricket fans is whether Englishman Joe Root can score his debut Test hundred in Australia on what will be his fourth Ashes tour here. Does he need a century on Australian soil to be placed in that top pantheon of elite batsmen? I don’t think he needs a hundred to prove his worth, or to prove the value that he’s brought to not just England, but to world cricket. If you’re the second-highest run scorer ever behind Sachin Tendulkar, that simply says exactly what kind of player he is. So, the cricketer in me would love to see him get a hundred. I think he’s going to have a really big series and he’s in a phase of his cricketing journey which has him as comfortable and as grounded as he’s ever been.
The pressure of playing and performing in an Ashes series is obviously immense. Has anything else in your life come close to it? In many ways, it’s hard to actually relive the feelings you had as a player – it was a long while ago now. I did, at the time, write some things down. There was a point where I knew that I would forget these feelings one day, that I’ll forget the hurt or the pain, or I might forget the feeling of jubilation and fun and excitement when we won. One time, I got out in South Africa and the game just had me down, it had me by the front and it was just shaking me around. I felt almost like, nearly nine years into an international career, that I had impostor syndrome. But I went in to bat, and it was like before I’d even taken guard I’d been dismissed. Back in the dressing rooms, before I took my pads off, I sat down and grabbed a notepad and just wrote how I was feeling. And I think the final line was, “I hate this game”. Now I reflect on that, and I can’t feel the emotion. I think, “How could I ever, ever have hated a game which I loved from the first moments, going to cricket as a four-year-old to watch Dad’s games?”
That’s a bit heartbreaking actually. I just, yeah, it was more about, I think, the expectation upon yourself. I think I was always really good about shutting out what others thought. It was more just try not to let yourself down, because if you could achieve that, then you go a long way to contributing to the success of the team.
Maybe it’s a good thing that not much else comes close?! I mean I do feel pressure and every day of this Ashes series, literally when our director is in my ear, I feel really proud – and without being too melodramatic – honoured, to open every day of the Test coverage on Fox as the host. When there’s five seconds until we’re live on air, in my mind, I feel a sense of responsibility and expectation to deliver as well as I can, to get the day rolling every day. That’s probably the closest feeling I’ve had to going out there as part of a cricket team in front of tens of thousands of people.
Adam Gilchrist hosts The Ashes on Fox Cricket. El Arquero tequila is available in stores around the country, elarquero.com
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