Inbox

Lounging with Gilly

A chance encounter with a cricket hero

Sanam Sharma
31-Jul-2015
Do you have any memories of chance encounters with cricketers? Write in to stands@cricinfo.com  •  AFP

Do you have any memories of chance encounters with cricketers? Write in to stands@cricinfo.com  •  AFP

It was late in the afternoon on a Friday. The lounge at Adelaide airport was abuzz with people like me, racing to get home for the weekend. However, my flight home had been delayed by an hour. So I made myself a sandwich and sat in the lounge browsing through a magazine.
There were people seated all around me. Some working away furiously on their laptops, a few twiddling through their smartphones, and some just chatting with each other.
It was all pretty uneventful. Until I looked up to re-check the status of my flight on the TV screen in front of me. The flight status still read 'Delayed'. So I got back to reading the magazine.
As my eyes manoeuvred back to the magazine, I felt the faint glimpse of a familiar face sitting opposite me. So, I looked up again. This time with a jerk. Only to find Adam Gilchrist positioned in the chair opposite me. I gently rubbed my eyes, and double-checked. Yup. Still there. Still him. The Adam Gilchrist was in the seat opposite me.
I think I dropped the magazine I was reading. And perhaps the sandwich too. Stunned, I searched within myself for a reaction befitting that moment. Scream out to the rest of the lounge? Take out my phone and start clicking away? Go hug "Gilly" the man himself?
The great man was busy working his way through a rushed-up meal. It would have been impolite of me to bother him. So I just leaned back in my seat and marveled at the fact that Adam Gilchrist was sitting at an arm's length from me. A non-event for the superstar, but the event of a lifetime for me. And perhaps for many others sitting in that lounge that day.
I wriggled around in my seat. Ducking, weaving, tying and untying shoelaces, all in the hope to catch his eye. He didn't look up. Not even for a moment. He must have been well aware of the numerous eyes fixated on him in that lounge. There were these faint murmurs and gentle whispers across the place, all discussing his presence.
Amid all this frenzy, Gilly managed to finish his meal. Then, in trademark Gilly style, he got up, and walked. And, normalcy returned within that lounge.
All this took 10 minutes. Maybe less. And as I sat there waiting for my flight, I revisited those last 10 minutes. They felt surreal. They still do, as I write these lines almost four weeks on. Ten minutes of yet another ordinary day's work for Gilly. Uneventful, and perhaps a bit too intrusive for his liking. Yet, ten minutes of my life that will always stay with me.
And just like Gilchrist often did on the cricketing field with his sheer presence, he lent a bit of extraordinary to a cricket fan's ordinary day.
If you have a submission for Inbox, send it to us here, with "Inbox" in the subject line.

Sanam Sharma is a cricket tragic of the highest order. He has a blog called Small Town Boy.