board and promised to make a case with the Lord's authorities for India to become a Test playing team. He did so, and in 1929 India became a member of the Imperial Cricket Conference. Bose points out that Gilligan's positive attitude towards Indians, and that of the MCC when granting India Test status, was markedly different from that of most Englishmen. In terms of the advancement of Indian cricket, Bose writes that "Gilligan's influence was immense". Final years as a cricketer Gilligan continued to play for Sussex until 1932. In 1927, he scored 828 runs at 27.60 but did not bowl in the first half of the season and took just 29 wickets at 24.65. The following season, he scored 942 runs at 26.91, including his last first-class century, and took 76 wickets at 26.27. In 1929, his final season as captain, he played only 12 times; he did not score a fifty, averaged 7.22 with the bat and took four wickets. He was frequently affected by injury; his brother Harold captained Sussex in his absence and assumed the role full time in 1930. Harold also took over as captain of an MCC team which toured New Zealand in the winter of 1929–30 when Gilligan withdrew owing to illness. Over the next three seasons, Gilligan appeared intermittently for Sussex and the MCC but scored only one fifty and took just five wickets in total in that time. His last first-class appearance was for H. D. G. Leveson Gower's team against Oxford in 1932. He played several charity games during the Second World War, including some for Sussex and the Royal Air Force. In all first-class cricket, Gilligan scored 9,140 runs at an average of 20.08 and took 868 wickets at 23.30. In 11 Test matches, he scored 209 runs at an average of 16.07 and took 36 wickets at 29.05, although 26 of these wickets came in the five Tests he played before his injury. As captain in nine Tests, he won four matches and lost four; the remaining game was drawn. Style and technique At the peak of his career, Gilligan was a fast bowler. He bowled with his arm quite low, but was very accurate; his usual strategy was to aim at the stumps or to try to induce the batsmen to edge the ball to be caught in the slips. According to his Wisden obituary, he "regarded