Dubai: There are no half-measures with Adam Gilchrist, be it like his swashbuckling batting during his playing days or the various roles the Australian cricketing legend has acquitted himself in after retirement. He played the role of a brand ambassador for a well known university in Dubai with elan during a visit to the Gulf News office on Tuesday morning, while even surprising was the perfection with which he fitted into the role of a guest anchor for the ‘Gulf News Headlines’ programme.

While ‘Gilly’ has been no stranger to the UAE — having been a regular in Sharjah since way back in 1998 — his role as the face of University of Wollongong (UOW) sees him touching down their franchise university in Dubai few times in a year now.

“My role is to come here for a variety of touchpoints like graduation ceremonies. There is a Adam Gilchrist Sports Scholarship whereby we encourage sporting excellence along with academics, for example we awarded the scholarship yesterday to a young lady [Esha Oza], who plays cricket, football and athletics,” Gilchrist said during a Facebook live programme.

It was around 9.30am that Gilchrist walked into our offices along with an entourage of officials — certainly a good time to smell the coffee but too early for a newspaper office to wake up.

The trim waistline did not betray that he had hung up his gloves even from the razzmatazz of Twenty20 franchise leagues at least three years back as a firm handshake greeted us at our Hub as we settled down for a chat. His visit this time is a whistle-stop one, where he attended a presentation ceremony on Monday night while Gilchrist was scheduled to head for India on Wednesday.

The treasure trove of cricketing knowledge he is, it was difficult not to pick his brains on the wide range of hot topics in international cricket — from Australia’s indifferent form overseas to the pioneering role of Indian Premier League (IPL) in changing the landscape of the game.

However, in his avatar as the brand ambassador of an university, how does he think a promising sportsperson should juggle between his or her studies?

“The trick lies in maintaining a balanced approach between the two. While pursuing a professional sport today demands full attention, in a world where internet has shrunk the society, a regular effort should be made to encourage sporting excellence,” he said.

All the talking shop at the Facebook session gave way to a ‘serious’ interview by K. R. Nayar, the Chief Cricket Writer, at our studios — while the brainwave of requesting him to play the newscaster of our morning bulletin came up. This would really be pushing our luck, I thought, for Gilchrist had by then had enough of us with two extended sessions of interviews.

Ever the sport that he is, Gilchrist gave in to our request, glancing through the script like the consummate pro beforehand and stopping once to cross-check on the correct pronunciation of Mammotty — the Malayalam film icon — whose figured in a news item. The result of this little bold experiment lies on our website and we cannot thank him enough for that.

Gilchrist met Abdul Hamid Ahmad, Editor-in-Chief and Executive Director of the GN Group, and Mohammad Almezel, Managing Editor of Gulf News, during the visit. The senior editors handed him a copy of The Rise of a Nation, a pictorial coffee table book of Gulf News Publications, which traces the growth of the UAE over four decades.