Is Adam Sandler a cricket icon?

Jason Gillespie rode his bat, because Happy Gilmore used his feet like a cricketer to smash a golf ball.

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There are many incredible cricket-Hollywood crossovers. But maybe nothing better than when Jason Gillespie rode his bat.

When most people think of Gillespie’s batting, it’s his last knock. Australia lost a late wicket on day one, and the quick went in as nightwatcher. He was there at the end of day one, and then the end of day two, and again at dusk on day three.

He got Australia to stumps three times; talk about an overachiever. In total he would bat for 425 balls, and scored 201 runs. And he would never bat again in a Test.

This might be the stupidest innings in our sport.

Many people remember Gillespie only for this. Yet, despite a historic knock, his batting was painful. He never met a ball he didn’t need to deadbeat. He had this low backlift and a decent forward press, and he wasn’t afraid to use them. Occasionally, he would deploy a checked punch push, that ricocheted off his bat like he was the leaves from a willow tree and not the wood.

But he was hard to dismiss, especially by the end of his career. That man would dig himself in like an Alabama tick.

A year before he embarrassed all the previous nightwatchers, he went up against New Zealand. When Adam Gilchrist's 126 was over, Gillespie came out with 450 runs on the board, meaning Australia’s lead was already 100. Two quick wickets fell, and Gillespie was joined by Glenn McGrath, a far worse tailender. The two of them added 115 runs to almost end New Zealand as a nation. Looking back, the Kiwis just had a poor attack to dismiss the tail, on what was a very flat wicket.

Somehow for the sixth time in his life, Glenn McGrath passed twenty runs. A huge achievement for a man who failed to score five runs in an innings on 91 occasions. And more amazingly, despite 138 Test innings, in this knock he almost made 10% of his career total with 61.

At the other end his mate ‘Dizzy’ Gillespie made his then top score of 54 not out. Weirdly, a month later he’d make another 50 against Pakistan (the knock against Bangladesh was about a year later). To bring up his milestone against the Kiwis, Gillespie inside-edged back past his stumps. He was so sheepish, he wasn’t even sure he should raise his bat.

But then he remembered that he had promised his friends from club cricket something, and so he rode his bat. Not carried it like an old pro, not throwing it, like a proper tailender. But he rode and spanked his bat like it was an imaginary bucking bronco.

It was directly taken from the movie Happy Gilmore. A 1996 comedy starring a young Adam Sandler. Jason Gillespie was riding his bat on the same Gabba where Don Bradman and Richie Benaud had played, because of a movie that was almost a decade old.

He took 259 wickets at 26. His bowling was no joke. His batting was no joke either, in a completely different way.

But because of a dare with friends, the first thing that comes to mind when I think about him is that he honoured a comedy that became famous because of DVD rentals. Jason Gillespie rode his bat, because Happy Gilmore used his feet like a cricketer to smash a golf ball.