Bridgetown: If Adam Gilchrist is to be believed, the secret behind his blistering 149 in the World Cup final against Sri Lanka is an innocuous squash ball in his batting glove.

Gilchrist’s breathtaking knock — a 104-ball knock studded with 13 fours and eight sixes —powered Australia to a 53-run win against the islanders. Every time Gilchrist hit a six, he gestured towards a point on his gloves. And he was prepared to share the reason for it with the media at the end of the day.

“Before the World Cup, I actually practised indoors and tried to improve my grip with half of the squash ball inside my gloves. It was a friend of mine, Bob Mueleman (former Western Australia player) who said that if I felt okay with it, I should gesture that I had got it right… which is what I actually did in the middle.”

The dashing left-hander confessed that he had been pretty “frustrated” by his performance in the run-up to the final.

“It was frustrating for me. I had made a few low scores and couple of 40s without quite nailing a big one. So high are the standards set by guys in the dressing room that if you don’t do that well, you actually start putting pressure on yourself and wondering if you really belong there. So in that sense it was a relief,” remarked Gilchrist.

Tributes flowed from all quarters, not just from his own dressing room.

“It was a brilliant, stunning innings. He did the same to us in the tri-series finals in Brisbane. It was some very solid hitting and when Gilly is in that mood, it becomes difficult to chase down a target,” said Sri Lankan skipper Mahela Jayawardene.

“I don’t think he has played a better knock than this one. He hardly missed anything and everything came off the middle of the bat. It could be the best innings we will ever see.