The counter-attacker supreme

Shane Warne, Ricky Ponting and Glenn McGrath may be the men most talked about when the Australia team springs to mind, but there is one man who could prove to be more important than all the rest in this summer's Ashes series; Adam Gilchrist. The man described by former England captain Nasser Hussain as "one of the top 10 players of all time", has come to his side's rescue on too many occasions to remember and his destructive batting has helped Australia get out of plenty of sticky situations.

As a wicketkeeper, he is far better than sound, but his batting is simply superb, and all that from No. 7 in the order. The left-hander, one of the cleanest strikers of the ball in the world, averages a phenomenal 55.65 with the bat, having only made it into the side just before his 29th birthday. In his 10 Tests against England, his average is an unbelievable 61.18, and away from home, his overall average is almost as good at 60.71.

Such has been Australia's dominance in the five-and-a-half years since Gilchrist entered the Test arena, he has batted just 97 times in his 68 Tests, and of those, he has ended up on the winning side on 52 occasions, drawing eight and losing just eight.

Much like his captain Ponting, many feel that the best chance to get rid of Gilchrist is to get him early, and the stats bear that out. In his 97 innings, he's been dismissed for 10 or less on no fewer than 31 occasions, and ten of those have been ducks. A total of 15 centuries and 20 fifties mean that once he gets past 10, he makes it past his half-century an incredible 53 percent of the time. And when he reaches 50, he goes onto make a century in 43 percent of his innings. In 2002-03 against England on his own turf, Gilchrist averaged 55.50 with one century and two fifties, while in England four years ago, he smashed 340 runs at an average of 68, from just five innings.

In terms of individual ground form, there's only the 2001 series to go on, and he has only played Tests at four of this year's grounds. However, he made 152 at Edgbaston, 90 at Lord's, 54 at Trent Bridge, with only The Oval, where he scored 25, letting him down. In fact, England's best policy may be to try to get him out with spin, as 48 percent of his dismissals have come at the hands of the slow bowlers.

When assessing the performance markets for Gilchrist, it's crucial to estimate how many times he'll bat, a figure that will partly be determined by the competitiveness or otherwise of the series, and partly by the weather. In 2001 he batted just five times, while last time round that rose to eight. Bet365 and Sporting Index are almost certain to include Gilly in their markets, and it's also important to remember that he keeps superbly to Shane Warne, having snaffled 27 stumpings in his time, together with 260 catches.