Gilchrist raises retirement talk

Adam Gilchrist is not sure if he will be back in Brisbane for the first Test of the next Australian summer. Touring over the past two years has worn him down to the point where he has considered walking away and the load will not become any lighter.

Australia face a record-breaking schedule in the next 18 months and there is a chance Gilchrist will step off the international treadmill. "Retirement is getting closer for Matthew Hayden and I," he said. "We know that because we are getting asked about it."

Gilchrist wondered during the opening game of last year's Ashes whether it would be his final series, but he will start the first Test against Sri Lanka on Thursday recharged after an off-season break. "Now I'm going to see where it leads," he said. "The World Cup win was a shot in the arm and for the past two seasons we've had three months away from the game during the winter.

"In the next three or four years you're not going to see that break and it's an important time for my career. I'm not sure whether I'll be back here next year, but with the way I feel at the moment it's the intention to try and get right through."

One option Gilchrist, who is 36 on November 14, has considered is to extend his Test career is cutting out one-dayers and focussing on the long form of the game. He has played 90 consecutive Tests and is only 15 dismissals from breaking Ian Healy's Australian record of 395.

Gilchrist might have felt more comfortable retiring last year if the team had not lost Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Justin Langer and Damien Martyn, but he stayed and will remain an essential member as the team undergoes its transition. He noticed the dramatic change in team personnel during the limited-overs tours of South Africa and India over the past two months.

"It really set in and the reality was evident," he said. "It's not panic or anything like that, just a realisation that the personalities are different."

Andrew Symonds, who holds a crucial role at No. 6, said it was time to move on from McGrath, Warne and co. "We are going to miss them but, as bad as it sounds, we're over it," he said. "We don't have those blokes any more so when we go to training we've got to work out how to bowl sides out and that's what we're doing."