Never Hesitate
Adam Gilchrist single-handledly changed cricket. Very much for the better, I might add. He built on the exceptional mid-90s groundwork of Alec Stewart to show how wicket-keepers should not only be expected to contribute valuable runs, but that they should also be readily accumulated at a fast pace in the then all-too-often torpid Test arena.
He just retired to trot off and receive the end-of-career rewards the Indian Premier League promises. This tournament by the way is generally a good thing. I regularly attend at least one English domestic Twenty20 match a season (following Warwickshire where possible although we always lose at home in our derby with Worcestershire for some reason) and I went to the inaugural World Cup in S Africa last year, which despite England’s appalling selection criteria and Collingwood’s surely complicit lap-dance club visit the morning of a key game, was utterly fantastic. The IPL should not become another international tournament though, competing for diary time with the Future Tours Programme, which is where it’s headed. That is bad and must be reined in.
So why the stream of cricket consciousness on my sales crusade? Last night I tuned into to get an update on England in the first day’s play from Hamilton. During the Lunch interval, Adam Gilchrist gave an interview. For all his decent-bloke charms, Aggers makes a useless interviewer. Despite Gilchrist wanting to chat away, he uncovered little. What was revealed though gave a lovely selling reminder.
Gilchrist changed the game because he was never afraid to play true to his natural style. If the ball was there to be hit, hit it he invariably would. Which is how come a No.7 could finish with a Test average of 47 and the highest strike rate of all-time. His philosophy was pretty much ‘never hesitate’. If you do hesitate, he said, then you’d suffer.
It’s a fine mantra for sellers. The number of times I’ve been adversely affected by not following my hunch on a campaign… aargh! Make that phone call, ask that question, do what you feel best and succeed as well as ‘Gilly’.