“I realized there and then I was trying to be a batsman, a wicketkeeper, a vice captain, a husband and a father, and I was doing a shit job at all of them.”
Straight Talk with Mark Bouris · September 2026
Gilchrist is describing a 2005 tour he calls his worst ever, with his wife and two young children travelling with him. After a day of dropped catches he walked into the hotel room to find his wife had cut her hand washing a baby bottle. This is what he says he understood in that moment.
Transcript
And the era before that, they did nothing. They didn't even acknowledge them. Um, might be a bit harsh saying that, but, um, But yeah, we just tried to balance it. And the last thing you want to do is on tour too much. 2005, Mel thought that I really wanted her. We had two kids at the time. Wanted her and the kids around the whole time. So we planned for that. I had the worst tour ever.
I was struggling.
And that's that period when the game had a hold of me and I couldn't sort of break out of it. And we fielded in this test match. I dropped a catch off Michael Vaughan second over of the day by stumps. He's 180 not out. Well, I dropped about three other catches that day. I was just battling in every way. I got off the team, um, the team bus at the hotel, went back into the room, opened the door and walk in and Mel's standing there with blood all over her hand where she'd cut herself in the sink, trying to wash up a glass bottle to feed Annie, our one year old. And she was, and, I realized there and then I was trying to be a batsman, a wicketkeeper, a vice captain, a husband and a father, and I was doing a shit job at all of them.
Wow. I wasn't hitting the target in any of it. And we sat down that night and I.
Said, do you want to go home? And she said, well, you want me to stay down? I went, well, it's probably might be time because I can focus. And she went, I want to get out of here. I've been wanting to go for a few weeks now. So that communicated a bit better, but the intention was, Well, it was well intended, but, um, just overstayed it. So we just tried to get the balance right. And I reckon generally we did. That was the one time where we didn't and it affected my performance. And what happened to your performance after that? How long did it take? No, there was one more test in that series after, and I didn't do a huge amount in that test match, but, um, but it was a great lesson for the, what I played another three years after that. And we, we got back to that, that balance and, uh, Do you think that's the worst period in your athletic career? 2005.
In terms of performance? 2006, yeah.