JASON GILLESPIE - THE BULLET MAN

A Jesus Christ look alike does play cricket! Shocking, right? But as we speak, Jason Gillespie runs down to bowl a delivery in the nets. The guy is a spitting image of Jesus reincarnate! With the unshaven beard, the long mane of this fast bowler, he does look like Jesus… spreading the joy of love for the game to all.

He made his test debut against the West Indies at Sydney in Dec 1996, and took two wickets on debut in the first innings. Bowling at second change, he got the wickets of Ambrose and Kenneth Benjamin clean bowled. Naturally he was operating at a good pace. Though, He did not have much bowling in the second innings thanks to the senior bowlers Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath (later his new ball bowling partner) who shook the West Indian batting and won the match for Australia.

His bowling sting did not really show in the rest of that series, he was always the second change; the opposition would be almost on the mat by the time he came in to bowl. So he did not have much to really look forward to, but his first real flourish came in 1997 when Australia toured South Africa. He returned with a tally of 14 wickets in the three tests there.

Then the 1997 Ashes in England was another good series for this tall lanky fast bowler, who at that time sported a pony tail; he had the English hopping all around with his pace and a rich haul of 16 wickets in 4 tests followed. Soon after, he was a regular in the side with Kasprowicz not regular in the team.

13.4 - 1 - 37 - 7 in the 4th Test Vs Eng in Eng, 1997 at Leeds has been his best bowling in all of 55 tests till date. He spat fire in that debut Ashes series with sheer pace and grit to send the English batsman packing back to the dressing room thinking of answers to this pace battery. That was also when McGrath had just humiliated them at Lord’s two tests before this one. In ODIs, he was just a slingshot bowler who bowled with pace and fire early on in his career, his prime was the three five wicket hauls in 77 ODIs.
The interesting thing about his five wicket hauls is that, that first was against Pakistanis at Kenya in 2002 when he made the Pakis totally submit to his super bowling of 10-2-22-5. Notably, that is his best bowling of his career so far. In the Final of the same Tournament he was massacred by the Pakis and yet returned figures of a highly volatile and expensive 10-1-70-5. His next and last fiver was at Harare when Australia toured the minnows, again Gillespie making the batsman swiping and slashing here and there with figures of 10 – 2 – 32 - 5.


Australia went to Sri Lanka to tame the Lions in their den as they always do. But in the first test at Kandy in 1999, horror struck for the tourists. After a silent first innings bowling performance, and a good batting performance of 41 in a graveyard of a track, where the Aussies were bowled out for 188, disaster struck on Sept 10, 1999, (if it were Sept 11, we would have sniffed something fishy!). Steve Waugh and Gillespie ran in to take a skier and ran into each other, and it was a major injury for both the players. Waugh broke his nose and Gillespie had a leg injury as well. Both had to be hospitalized. That was the turning point in this placeman’s career, which stopped a blooming career for a short while.

Well coming back from injury is difficult, getting back into the Aussie team is the worst thing one can ever think of. It’s more difficult than choosing the captain of the Indian team! After battling his life threatening injury for 2 years, finally Jason came back into the Aussie team in the second test against West Indies at Perth in 2000-01 when the Aussies were in an all winning streak. He had lost most of his pace, he had to work more on guile rather than go all out with speed. He operated with guile and yet was a handful for the meek WI who surrendered without much to think about. Then after there was no stopping Gillespie… the Ashes 2001 followed, and soon after this bowler had a place behind his figures for the wickets column.

Starting his career as a bowler who would rarely get a taste of the white cherry at its shiniest moment, he had his chance finally when the senior bowlers like McGrath was injured and Paul Reiffel retired. Australia was trying new bowlers like Adam Dale, and then Gillespie became the bowler chosen to take the new ball. Brett Lee came along soon, and the Aussie pace battery was strengthened once again.

Gillespie became a revelation, a rebellion bowler who relied on his good three quarters length and incisive cutters more than ever. Runs were hard to come by, and wickets tumbled upon another.
Jason was a success on all the pitches he played in and got heaps of the opening batsmen out for Australia and made the early breakthroughs for the Warne's and Lee's to really get an eye in and look for additional wickets. Now with McGrath back in the side and with these two sharing the new ball, Aussie bowling packs a punch with the early wickets and the feast of wins overseas and everywhere they play… home or away, it doesn’t matter!

In the recently concluded test at Bangalore in the ongoing Australia tour of India 2004, he emulated his current skipper Adam Gilchrist by showing his sportsmanship by walking when he knew he had bat-padded the ball from Harbhajan to forward shirt leg even as the Umpire Steve Bucknor turned it down as not out!

He recently became Crickets version of the Goran Ivanisevic, when he stopped the hair cuts and grew long hair and did not shave off his French beards perhaps, like vowing that he will not shave until the day he retires or when the wickets dry up on him. We wish that day will never come when he hangs ups his boots and says, “Mates, I’m going to finally shave!” We wish him more unshaven seasons of cricket and the evergreen spells of cricket with the ball.