Timing is the essence of an event, if you are a celebrity. Stuart McGill, who was spearheading the spin department after Shane Warne hung up his boots from the Australian Cricket team, announced his retirement in the middle of the current West Indian tour that the Australian team is undertaking in the Caribbean.

Was the decision of McGill justifiable, and was it opportune to announce the retirement even while the match was under progress? McGill could have announced that he would quit only after the series came to an end and not bang in the middle.

What prompted McGill to take this impetuous decision? Was the phantom like presence of Shane Warne the trigger to reach this decision? Shane Warne, for McGill has been the banyan tree, beneath which McGill could grow only up to the heights that Shane Warne allowed?  It was only during 2003-04 when Shane Warne was serving a ban for consuming illegal substances, that McGill displayed his true potential as a worthy successor to Warne, or a bowler who had the ability to rise to the occasion and fill up the slot vacated by Shane Warne.

McGill however could not repeat the same, when Shane Warne hung his boot finally. McGill had the talent to be a prominent spin bowler for the Australian team, but his potential was not tapped to the full-extent. Any bowler or player, even though having a potential cannot bring magic into his performance unless the captain has a confidence in hi. In case of McGill, be it Steve Waugh or Ricky Ponting, they could have the same level of confidence in McGill as they had in Warne.

Could the confidence be guided by the mercurial temperament that a player has? May be. It has been seen that the players who have a streak of eccentricity in their approach to the game have enjoyed the confidence of their captains to deliver the results, and not the docile players, who are content hanging around. Probably McGill fell under this category, and as such when he announced his retirement there was no request from any quarters to him to reconsider the decision.

Does McGill have a career after retirement? Surely does. In a country of beer guzzlers, McGill is wine connoisseur, so he could become a wine taster and unravel the nuances of Australian wine to all and sundry. McGill is a keen bibliophile during one of the Australian tours to Pakistan had finished of 24 books. With sports writing emerging as a new genre McGill can surely become a book reviewer as well.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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