Adam Gilchrist to Deliver Mcc Spirit of Cricket Lecture

Adam Gilchrist, whose defence of the ethics of the game has made him almost a saintly figure in his native Australia, will deliver the ninth MCC Spirit of Cricket lecture at Lord's, ahead of this summer's Ashes series.

Gilchrist, at 38 and following such luminaries as Richie Benaud and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, will become the youngest speaker to deliver the lecture that celebrates Sir Colin Cowdrey's successful campaign to enshrine guidelines about honest behavior within the laws of the game. No modern cricketer is better designed for the role.

Derek Underwood, the MCC's president, said: "Few players – past or present – encapsulate the Spirit of Cricket better than Adam Gilchrist. We are therefore delighted that Adam will deliver this year's MCC Spirit of Cricket Lecture."

Gilchrist's reputation for integrity uncommon in the top echelons of team sport was embedded after Australia's 2003 World Cup semi-final against Sri Lanka, in which he walked after he had been caught by the wicketkeeper Kumar Sangakkara but had been adjudged not out by the umpire Rudi Koertzen.

He later wrote in his autobiography, which was suitably entitled Walking The Walk, that his team-mates were flabbergasted. He said: "It was a really weird sensation to go against the grain of what 99% of cricketers do these days, and what we've been doing for our whole careers."

After his retirement, Gilchrist even dared to criticise India's most celebrated cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar, for changing his evidence during the enquiry into a race row between the volatile Australian batsman Andrew Symonds and India's maverick spinner Harbhajan Singh.

Harbhajan said in return that Gilchrist's honesty was a sham. "He pretends to be a saint and people say he walks when he nicks, but why did he appeal when batsmen didn't nick?" Harbhajan said.

Even the MCC was forced to exonerate Gilchrist after the last World Cup final, in 2007, when he used a squash ball inside his batting gloves to adjust his grip. In Sri Lanka, past beneficiaries of his most celebrated display of honesty, he was accused of cheating. One newspaper claimed that he had used "a non-traditional foreign object".

Gilchrist, who still plays in the Indian Premier League, for Deccan Chargers, retired from international cricket with a reputation as one of the most exhilarating cricketers of any age. He played 96 Tests, 287 one-day internationals and 13 Twenty20 matches for Australia. He has the most dismissals by any wicketkeeper in one-dayers and by any Australian in Tests. As a batsman he had one of the fastest strike rates in both forms of the game.