Gilchrist and Warne team up in WA
Adam Gilchrist will get another chance to keep to spin great Shane Warne - perhaps for the last time - in Perth in December.
The two champions will team up in a festival match against the Perth Scorchers that organisers hope will replicate the highly successful Lilac Hill format of recent seasons.
Gilchrist, Warne and Test teammate Ricky Ponting will play for the Australian Legends XI. More big names will be announced once they are confirmed, believed to include Matthew Hayden, Andy Bichel and Michael Kasprowicz.
Gilchrist played with Warne at Lord's in July at a one-day match celebrating the 200th anniversary of the famous ground.
But the West Australian gloveman was devastated when Warne broke a thumb while batting and could not bowl in his team's innings.
"Keeping to Warnie again was one of the main reasons that I agreed to play in that match at Lord's and I was incredibly disappointed when he couldn't bowl," Gilchrist said.
"The highlight of my career was keeping to him and I am glad that I will get another chance this summer."
The festival match will be played at Aquinas College and Gilchrist - who is the Scorchers' No. 1 ticket-holder - hoped that it would become an annual event.
Lilac Hill proved a remarkable success over 20 years before the increasing time restraints on touring teams forced it to be abandoned last decade.
The All Stars game will be almost identical with more than 50 corporate tents on one side of the playing fields and several thousand spectators expected to ring the rest of the ground.
Gilchrist said players would be able to mingle with the crowd and that the loss of genuine festival matches was an unfortunate result of the game's increasing professionalism.
"This should be an excellent workout for the Scorchers players just before they get to defend their Big Bash title and hopefully we will give a pretty good account of ourselves too," he said.
"It is our intention to make this an annual event just before the start of the Big Bash.
"And the Twenty20 format is perfect for a festival game because there is plenty of action on the field but it does not go long enough to distract from the important action off the field."
·Brad Haddin will replace Michael Clarke as Australia's captain in the upcoming Test series against Pakistan if the injured incumbent can't play.
Phil Hughes has been called into the ODI squad as the replacement batsman for Clarke.
"The highlight of my career was keeping to (Warne) … I will get another chance this summer." " *Adam Gilchrist *
with Australian Associated Press
