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McGrath
still on top as he prepares for final fling
Bowl it one last time, Glenn
Rahul Bhattacharya in St Lucia
April 25, 2007
St Lucia is a delightful island of Caribbean vibes. At night the liming strip in
Rodney Bay has come alive for comers from all over the world. Beres Hammond,
Sean Paul and David Rudder have performed. Shaggy and Maxi Priest will tonight.
But Lucians don't much talk about cricket - or listen to it, as Tuesday's
Jamaica semi-final did not come over the radio. There has never been a Test
cricketer out of here and the few locals who were at Beausejour will not have
been bowled over by what they saw.
This was a less than rousing affair. The trouble with Australian professionalism
is that it has become such a cliché that even watching it at its calibrated best
can be numbing. Glory be flaws.
Yet, with a little filter of nostalgia even these hours of unremitting lopsided
excellence are able to take on some warmth. To watch the chuntering maestro
Glenn McGrath at work was to see an entire era of wicket-to-wicket
back-of-length menace flash before the eyes, the eternal hypnotic torture of it.
We will get to see it once more on Saturday. Once more only.
Few cricketers have been at once so level as McGrath and yet able to find
another one. In an over, in a spell, in a day, in a series, in a season, he
seems always to be operating at his peak. Still he is continually rising to
occasions. Remember his ball to Sachin at the '99 World Cup? The one to Lara?
Admittedly Ashwell Prince played the stroke of a paralysed man and Jacques
Kallis' foolishness brought the best out of a fine yorker. The touch of the
master was in the Mark Boucher dismissal. It was the classic McGrath incision,
Halal if you will. Off stump and just outside, a bit of wobble and bounce,
caught first slip. Equally McGrathian was the impact: big semi-final, opening
spell, six overs, 3 for 14, South Africa 27 for 5. The man is two months after
37. He looks it too. Australians were asking for him to be put to pasture before
the World Cup. There you go.
"The fact that I'm going to retire is probably one of the reasons I'm bowling so
well," he said, "because I'm just going out there, trying to enjoy it, make the
most of it, make the most of every game I play. There's no pressure, no fear, no
anything.
"I've probably bowled a little differently this tournament. Probably bowled a
little more aggressively than I have done in the past. That's the reason I've
got a few more wickets, I've probably gone for a few more runs than I normally
do. It's worked out with 25 wickets; Tait has 23 wickets, Brad Hogg has 20 and
Bracks [Nathan Bracken] is doing well too. The fact that we've bowled every team
out is a huge lift for us, bar Bangladesh who we only got 20 overs with."
Those last two sentences draw out an essence of the McGrath personality. To
observe him at a press conference is to appreciate that his renowned trick of
knowing each one of his dismissals cannot be idle exaggeration.
There was something like the Dustin Hoffman character in Rain Man about the
scene at the dais. Every time Ponting needed a figure, he'd look to McGrath, who
would oblige. Sometimes he did not need to ask. When Ponting said Australia had
done well to restrict Sri Lanka to 226 in 50 overs the other day, McGrath
intervened to say that they had in fact bowled them out (they had, in 49.4 overs).
When Ponting mentioned Shaun Tait had done very well to get 22 wickets in the
tournament, McGrath interrupted to say that it was in fact 23. When a journalist
asked him about his four Man-of-the-Match awards in the tournament, he quipped:
"Hopefully if it's four it will mean we've won the final. I've only really got
three."
"They talk about batsmen batting in partnerships," McGrath said, "I think it's
even more so with bowlers. With Nathan Bracken and Shaun Tait bowling the way
they are, Punter asks me to come on generally with one or two wickets down.
Bracks always keeps it tight, puts batsmen under pressure, and the way Taity's
been bowling they just want to get down to the other end and face me!
"We're all different bowlers but complement each other. You've got an old bloke
running in and hitting the deck top of off, Bracks swinging it up front and then
he's back with old ball at the end, Taity who can come in and just blast guys
out, and Hoggy has had an exceptional tour, he played a big part in 2003 and is
again now. And you've got guys like Stuart Clark and Mitchell Johnson dying to
get out for a game, and Brett Lee is at home."
There was pride in the words of the oldie. With the departure of McGrath,
shortly after Shane Warne, an epoch in cricket will have been completed.
Expertly, precisely, and more humorously than given credit, the job has been
done. McGrath leaves Australian cricket in a better shape than he found it in
and Australia, as ever, are ready to make the most of it.
Rahul Bhattacharya is author of Pundits from Pakistan: On Tour with India,
2003-04
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