KEY POINTS:
Adam Gilchrist's surprising retirement announcement makes it imperative to celebrate the Australian wicketkeeper's extraordinary career here.
There has never been anyone like Gilchrist, and he was so good that there may never be one again.
Sport is constantly raising the bar. You only have to look at video of old rugby tests or the English football top flight to understand how quickly sport can advance in power and athleticism.
The standards just keep going up in many sports which - with some irony - doesn't always produce better material to watch.
For example, tennis, you can argue, was more interesting when less power allowed more artistry, although Roger Federer has shown that class can still win through. Golf has lost charm in the power age, and F1 motor racing is fast becoming to a skilful sporting contest what the spray can is to fine art.
Gilchrist though has raised both the standards and the entertainment. His has been a skill born out of power, not killed by it. He is so far ahead of every other wicketkeeper-batsman that it might even be counterproductive for others to take the sort of risks that would be needed to emulate his style. Good careers could be lost to embarrassingly rash strokes.
There is one challenger to Gilchrist in the remarkable Sri Lankan Kumar Sangakkara, but he is regularly relieved of the wicketkeeping duties which only serves to magnify Gilchrist's achievements over a 90-plus test career.
It must require incredible stamina and concentration to be both a world class wicketkeeper and batsman, and there would have been cumulative wear and tear on Gilchrist - cricket's version of compound interest if you like. And yes, Gilchrist's run haul has slowed and he has lately dropped catches that used to stick in the mitts.
For comparison, Sangakkara averages around 58 runs per test innings, and he has faced the added pressure of batting up the order. Gilchrist averages around 48 at a remarkable strike rate of 82 runs per hundred balls. Stunning.
A few more revealing statistics. Another very fine, if far more ponderous wicketkeeper batsman was England's Alec Stewart - his test batting average was 35 when he played as a wicketkeeper and 47 when a specialist batter.
Sangakkara's numbers in this regard are even more revealing. His batting average is just over 40 when he plays as a wicketkeeper, but he packs a batting punch at over 90 when the wicketkeeping gloves come off. Indeed, the question around Sangakkara is more whether Sri Lanka should burden a player of Bradmanesque proportions with the wicketkeeping duties. One thinks not, and he is being played as a specialist batsman nowadays.
Clearly, wicketkeeping takes a major toll on a player's batting ability.
Until Gilchrist came along, a classy test 'keeper who could average in the low 30s was a star, and this may well come to be seen as the standard again with the Australian about to depart.
Gilchrist has never been given any relief from his wicketkeeping duties, yet he has flayed attacks in five-day tests and in the plethora of one-dayers.
He is the Edwin Moses, the Don Bradman, the Mark Spitz of his craft and he has done it by providing thrills to treasure, even if he did play for our transtasman rival.
He was not just a genius batsman of course - he holds the world dismissal record and his ability as a gloveman was typified by his partnership with maestro legspinner Shane Warne. The irony here was that the two men did not get on, Gilchrist being of a conservative nature, and Warne being of the larrikin persuasion.
By all accounts, Gilchrist played cricket with a tremendous spirit, but it is the Gilchrist batting that will live on in the memory. The juices of anticipation flowed when you saw him stride to the crease.
Gilchrist struck the ball so cleanly and in an uncomplicated way.
He would begin innings as he meant to go on, and often turned games in the time it took other very good players to settle in.
Sport moves on, as does life, but the hole Gilchrist leaves in world cricket may never truly be filled.
