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Still posing searching questions to the batsmen

S. Dinakar

CRICKET / McGrath plans to return to the Indian Premier League next season

— Photo: K. Pichumani

ACCURATE AS EVER: Glenn McGrath still hits the right areas and has made a big impression in the early phase of the IPL.

Chennai: Glenn McGrath still cuts like a knife. The legendary bowler — the outstanding paceman in the IPL so far — has posed searching questions to the batsmen in a format that encourages the big hits and a glut of runs.

The Australian head-hunter, turning out for the Delhi Daredevils in the IPL, shared his thoughts with The Hindu here on Friday.

He has, typically, relished the challenges of Twenty20 cricket. “You have to make the switch mentally. Here going for just under eight runs an over is acceptable. You change your length depending on the batsmen and the situation. You should know when to use the slower ball. The key is to take early wickets. It is a format loaded in favour of batsmen and the fact that I find my rhythm and length quickly has helped me.”

Keeping it simple

His probing off-stump line, subtle movement, and bounce are in place. He still hits the right areas. Says McGrath, “Cricket is a simple sport but the complicated thing is to keep it simple. My philosophy is, if you could bowl 99 out of a hundred balls hitting the deck on top of off-stump or around that area you will take wickets. I was not a big swinger of the ball but I was tall and I had bounce. I worked around my strengths.”

A high-arm action, a mind that could spot chinks and a body that was strong and supple also contributed to making him a formidable bowler. “The more I bowled, the better I felt. I trained so hard when I was not playing Tests that when I was actually playing a Test, it was like taking a holiday physically,” he says.

He stresses the mental aspect. As a country boy growing up in New South Wales, he often travelled 500 km for playing a game of cricket. “It made me tougher mentally. Cricket is 95 per cent mind,” he says.

After a mountain of achievements, McGrath says he has no regrets looking back at his international career. “There were times when I became a little emotional on the field, said a few things I probably should not have said. But I am never the kind to hide my emotions.”

He has enjoyed watching his former mate Shane Warne captaining and bowling Rajasthan Royals to a run of successes. “His biggest regret was that he could not captain Australia in Tests. Warne would have made a tremendous captain. I still feel the greatest challenges for Australia would be in finding replacements for Warne and Matthew Hayden, when he retires in about 12 months from now. I am happy with our present pace attack.”

Awesome duo

McGrath and Warne formed a match-winning pace-spin combination in Tests. “We were very different bowlers but had one thing in common. We both kept it tight and created pressure from both ends. There were no easy runs. Pressure creates wickets. Bowlers work in combinations.”

The Aussie feels the Indian team that visited down under this season had a different mind-set from the sides that toured Australia in the past. “Previously, the Indians had been worried about pace and bounce. Now, they had Ishant Sharma who added firepower to the pace attack. And they had Harbhajan (Singh) who brought aggression to the side.”

McGrath adds, “They (the Indians) used the media very well after the Sydney Test. I felt let down by how the events were projected and you can imagine how the Aussies playing in the series would have felt. It affected them and the Indians pulled off a very good win in Perth.” On the Harbhajan-Sreesanth incident in the IPL, he says, “I am not sure about what led to it and probably only two or three people know the entire truth. Such a thing should not happen.”

McGrath believes there is more sledging in domestic cricket than in Tests. “In Tests, you have so many cameras and an incident is shown over a hundred times to make it seem more serious than it actually is,” he says.

He adds, “The Australians do not sledge more than any other team. We are very upfront about how we feel. We do not say anything on the sly. We bat well, bowl well, field well, and win most of the times. Perhaps, sledging is the only area where the media can have a go at us.”

The cameras for cricket coverage were not good enough for all decisions to be referred to the third umpire, he says. “The technology is there but the cameras aren’t good enough,” he says.

Concern

He is concerned at how the wickets all over the world have turned more batsmen-friendly. This, he points out, had adversely affected pace bowling.

He calls his former skipper Steve Waugh as a “ruthless captain who wanted to crush his opponents from the first ball.” He rates Ricky Ponting high as skipper and says the Aussie batsman, in the middle of a form slump, would eventually end up as the highest run-getter in Tests. McGrath, enjoying his stint with a lively and buoyant Delhi side, plans to return to the IPL next season. That’s not good news for the batsmen.

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