Jason Gillespie has confirmed he is retiring from Australian first-class cricket at the end of South Australia's current Pura Cup match against Queensland at Adelaide Oval.
The former Test opening bowler, 33 in April, leaves next week to join the unsanctioned Indian Cricket League. He has signed a lucrative three-year ICL contract that could affect his commitment to play with Glamorgan in the English county championship this year.
"This will be the last first-class match I play in Australia," Gillespie told a packed media conference - as well as family, friends and past and present team-mates - in the Phil Ridings Room at Adelaide Oval during the lunch break on day one of the SA-Queensland Pura Cup match.
"Cricket has been very good to me. I've travelled the world, I've met some fantastic people and I've spent my time doing the thing I love the most, which is playing cricket.
"But it has always been important to me to end my career on my own terms while I'm still contributing. I do not want to get tapped on the shoulder and shown the door.
"And the time has come - I have a young family to consider. My daughter (Sapphire) has reached her teens. I've travelled for all of her life. I think it is time I was around for her and her (young) brothers (Jackson and Brandon) and my wife (Anna)."
Gillespie said he was grateful to Cricket Australia for 'sticking by' him early in his career when he was plagued by injuries, and also to the Australian and SA selectors who 'had faith' in him.
And he said he 'owed an immense amount' to his Australian team-mates, captains, coaches and team staff at Cricket Australia who had supported him over the years, and it had been a 'privilege' to be a part of the SA team and the SA Cricket Association.
Gillespie also thanked his local club, Adelaide, and his former English county club, Yorkshire, his sponsors - and even the media! And he thanked Jeff 'Bomber' Hammond for teaching him to bowl and Darren 'Boof Lehmann for teaching him to 'play the game the right way'.
Gillespie said he would play in a coming ICL Twenty20 tournament and then go to England 'to fulfil my commitments with Glamorgan County Cricket Club'.
"I'm very excited - it certainly is a change," he said. "But it's something I'm very much looking forward to. It's just an opportunity to do something a little bit different and it's exciting."
"The opportunity came up and I had to weigh things up. I wasn't sure what I was going to do - whether I was going to play on another season with SA. I was umming and aahing at that point."
"The body is feeling good so we'll see how we go. Obviously I can't do the things I could do six or seven years ago, but I still feel I'm contributing."
Pressed on whether he could still play English county cricket after having played in the ICL, Gillespie said: "Well, I've got a contract with Glamorgan. I'm certainly going to be fulfilling that contract and I hope they'll do the same."
When it was put to him that the England & Wales Cricket Board had said this week that overseas-contracted players in the ICL would not be able to play county cricket, Gillespie said: "Look, I'm