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Has the Gilly retirement tour gone on a bit long?

I love Gilly, you can read about here, here, here, here or practically anywhere on my blog for proof.

But this is gone on long enough.

He has now played at all the relevant Australian cricket grounds, and Radelaide oval, on his retirement tour.

So he has said goodbye to everyone in Australia.

He danced for his home crowd, and waived goodbye to everyone else.

Now what?

He has a possible broken thumb, an understudy who is sitting around twiddling his unbroken thumbs and another 4 or 5 games left to continue his royal saluting to everyone.

As any fan of musicians or boxers will tell you, retirements often go awry.

Usually by the intended coming back, or by extended tours that seem to go on and on and on, until your glad they are retiring.

Gilly hasn’t quite gone that far yet, but Haddin must be feeling a bit like the dude sitting around waiting for his chicks husband to die before he makes the relationship public.

And we all know how that feels.

If Gilly does have a broken thumb, surely he has better things to do with it than play in the Kerry Packer memorial tournament.

I’m all for a player getting a final chance to salute his home crowd, I’m even for a champion player getting to say goodbye to a few places, but a potential 11 game goodbye series is getting a bit much.

What will players start doing, announcing they will retire in 3 years time, so that for the last 3 years Mark Nicholas can suck at the dirt between their toes.

What about the next Lara or Tendulkar, one they are crowned king of the cricket universe can they say I will retire in 12 years time, so you better start worshipping me now.

He is obviously not the only one who has done this, Glenn McGrath did the same thing, but that was to win one more world cup, and ensure South Africa didn’t win one world cup.

That was a noble pursuit, but winning a three way competition that he usually asks be to rested during isn’t really the same thing.

You are a champion Gilly, but perhaps it is time to let the Understudy up on stage, so I can bag him.

Gilly you have done everything in your career, holding up a trophy that means less to us than a drawn test match is useless.

Go be with your family, we'll soldier on without you.www.cricketwithballs.com "losing the war on over rates, winning the war on tony greig"