We continue our Inspirational Ashes 30-day countdown to the 2010-2011 series by looking at Adam Gilchrist, who hit 16 Ashes sixes.

Adam Gilchrist

Ashes record

Tests: 20

Runs: 1083

HS: 152

Average: 45.12

Centuries: 3

Fours: 142

Sixes: 16

Overall record

Tests: 96

Runs: 5570

HS: 204 not out

Average: 47.60

Centuries: 17

Fours: 577

Sixes: 100

Adam Craig Gilchrist waited a long time to play Test cricket for Australia, but once he replaced Ian Healy, nine days short of his 28th birthday, he made up for lost time in scintillating fashion.

Gilchrist did not play against England until the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston in 2001, but the Poms were left in no doubt as to his star quality when he smacked five sixes and 20 fours in a dazzling 143-ball 152.

The New South Welshman carried on essentially unconquered, and he arrived in England in 2005 for the Ashes with a magnificent average of 55.65; but England's well-laid plan precipitated the first proper slump in Gilchrist's career.

At the age of 34, Gilchrist would never be the same again. But 15 months later, in the 2006-2007 Ashes Test in Perth, he wound back the clock with an innings for the ages. Swatting sixes and fours like flies, Gilchrist blasted a century off 57 deliveries - failing by just one ball to emulate West Indies legend Sir Vivian Richards's world mark for the fastest Test ton.

It was a lovely way to remember Gilchrist by, but it really wasn't necessary. His watertight place in cricket's history - as a pioneering, powerful and exciting player of the highest quality - had long been established.