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Popular veteran George Bailey will play his final first-class match this weekend when Tasmania host South Australian in the Sheffield Shield.
After idolising him on television as a kid, Jordan Silk hopes to farewell popular Tasmanian veteran George Bailey with a Sheffield Shield win.
Bailey, 37, plays his final first-class game against South Australia from Saturday at Bellerive Oval before retiring early next year to become a national selector.
"He's been a wonderful player. It'll be in my thoughts most of this game," Silk, in his second match as Tigers skipper, told reporters on Friday.
"It will be special to be a part of - and hopefully, we can send him out a winner."
Bailey's 128th first-class match for the Tigers will cap a 15-year career which has yielded 8146 runs, to be third on the state's batting list behind Jamie Cox and Michael Di Venuto.
He skippered Tasmania to Shield titles in 2010/11 and 2012/13.
Silk, who hails from NSW, grew up watching Bailey playing in the domestic one-day cup.
"I loved watching Tassie play and George was one of my favourite players," the 27-year-old said.
"So to have ended up down here, sharing a change room with him and to have him captain me over the years is something really special.
"As a leader, he's something you want to aspire to."
Bailey has played 90 ODIs for Australia, plus five Tests and 30 T20s.
He'll play out the Big Bash summer with the Hobart Hurricanes before retiring in February from elite cricket to join Trevor Hohns and coach Justin Langer as national selectors.
His immediate focus, though, will be on helping fourth-placed Tasmania atone for last week's thrashing inside two days by Queensland.
"You'd like to hope it was a bit of a blip. I'd like to think it doesn't get much worse than that," Silk said of the 10-wicket loss on home turf.
"I'm confident we'll be able to turn it around."
The Tigers have recalled allrounder Simon Milenko to their squad, while the winless Redbacks might hand a first-class debut to young batsman Daniel Drew.
