You wait ages for a bogeyman’s retirement, then two come along at once. Glenn McGrath is to join Shane Warne in bowing out after these next two Tests. The most prolific fast bowler of all will walk off arm in arm with the most prolific spinner. McGrath may even find that one of his whitewash predictions has finally come true. That would be a hell of a last hurrah, or as he presumably has it, hurrath.
The limelight at the MCG and the SCG will be unprecedentedly bright, turned up by the sentimentality we sports fans are prone to. Sharing it will suit McGrath more than Warne. Warne is a showman, a conjuror and an innovator, whereas McGrath is none of these. He is more of a surgeon - except that surgeons are supposed to make you better.
At his peak, he didn’t so much bowl teams out as disembowel them. He had a particular taste for English and West Indian flesh. The five men he dismissed ten times or more in Tests were Mike Atherton (a ridiculous 19), Brian Lara (a formidable 15), Jimmy Adams, Sherwin Campbell and Alec Stewart. He defeated them not by being clever, although he was, but by being patient, skilful, confident, and exerting immense control. Warne has expanded the possibilities of bowling; McGrath preferred to narrow them down.
His deities were the eternal verities, line, length, lift, and an upright seam. He showed that you don’t need very much movement to catch the edge. He sometimes moved the ball extravagantly, but those deliveries didn’t tend to be the lethal ones. The bulk of his wickets were taken by standard deliveries, aimed at the top of off stump, and doing just enough. He was both a great attacking bowler and a great run-saver, and the reason was that his stock ball was also his danger ball. Along with Richard Hadlee, he was the most clinical of all the top bowlers.
He made a very good Australian team almost unbeatable. Since the start of the 1997 Ashes, they have played 94 Tests with McGrath there, winning 66 and losing only 12. Without him, they have played 25 Tests, winning 15 and losing eight, so when he has been absent injured or tending his sick wife, the win ratio slips from 70 per cent to 60, but more strikingly, the loss ratio leaps from 13 per cent to 32. And the number of draws halves, because even when things were going against his team, McGrath would slow their opponents down.
He is going at the right time from his point of view. There have been intimations of mortality in this series. His six-for at Brisbane was gained mainly on reputation, as England wilted, and since then he has been just a supporting player, taking tidy two-fors. Kevin Pietersen has shown that you can dance down the wicket to him because you know where the ball will land, and McGrath has not taken that indignity well.
From the team’s point of view, the timing is not so hot. Australia famously suffered when Dennis Lillee, Rod Marsh and Greg Chappell all departed together. This is at least as great a loss, because rather than being spread through the team, it’s half the attack going at once, and more than half the threat. Ricky Ponting’s armoury won’t be empty, but it will be normal.
Who will lead the pack now? With Brett Lee going through another of his blunt patches, Stuart Clark is the only bowler who can be sure of a place in Australia’s next Test series, fitness permitting. The new chairman of selectors, Andrew Hilditch, has taken a stern line over Stuart MacGill’s behaviour issues (you wonder what he makes of Warne’s dissent). The next Aussie Test attack could be Clark, Mitchell Johnson, Shaun Tait and Dan Cullen, with Andrew Symonds or Shane Watson in support. Promising, intriguing, but not daunting. Indian fans, whose team go to Australia next Christmas, can raise their hopes a notch.
Well the inevittable that I personally haven't looked forward to has finally come. First the retirement of Shane Warne & now Glen McGrath. I think Australia has batting talents waiting but I am a little concerned about the bowling.
Firstly much has been written about Warne but I really hope people recognise & give the tribute deserved to McGrath without doubt once in a lifetime bowler. Much like Warne he had that champion factor. When others were toiling & couldn't break through he had an uncanny ability to come on & get the wicket required. Unlike Warne possibly a large percentage of his wickets appeared to be top order & opening batsmen.
Will the Australian team slump to the 80's when Chappell, Lillee & Marsh retired?
I don't think they will hit this low, the selctors are claiming they won't allow a repeat of this. To mind I honestly think Australian Cricket likely would have been stronger with new batsmen replacing Langer, Hayden, Martyn & soon Gilchrist with another series of two with McGrath & Warne backing up the new batting stocks.
Australian Cricket fans have become like the two bowlers who are retiring when they stepped on the field they expected to win & mostly did.
I hope that although unlikely that Bret Lee is maybe rested for the dead rubbers & Tait & Johnson are given a run. They are the future let them step on the the arena soon top be theirs with two champions of the highest calibre as they bow out.
To those English fans & media alike who came here talking up how they were going to beat Australia etc these two cricketers are the reason this was never going to happen.
Posted by: gordon at December 25, 2006 7:26 PM
Great article Tim. Its Boxing Day as I write and the 4th test has not yet begun and I must admit I do not feel that normal anticipation an AUSSIE always has on this day.
I warned my wife a few weeks ago that a few friends would be " over" to watch the Test today, thinking of course that together with possibly 100,000 others , actually at the MCG, this would be just the most wonderful day- a classic Ashes first day.
However the combination of first, a three nil series situation and now the inevitable reality of these retirements has left me feeling that today will be a huge anticlimax.
All the players must be feeling similarly despite what is said,
The day will unfold and one hopes for drama. One hopes the occasion itself will ensure this is a special day of cricket for it surely is a special day when two masters of the bowling arts appear together arm in arm knowing it is almost their last opportunity to display their special talent.
As for your comments on the future, they are well and fairly presented.
One could not blame if there was also some sense of relief that finally this era may be seeing its last days .. "hurrah"... (!) but no as I read them I sensed a genuine respect and sense of occasion and that was nice to read in this column.
There is also a sense of a new dawn in the ranks with as you mention young Mitchell Johnson and others such as Tait and Clark but also Bracken ( whose potential I feel is great).
One of the enduring charms of this game is that Cricket always introduces new stars and now they are waiting to be fulfilled in 2009 (just as Hussey has emerged so incredibly since 2005) but I rather think we shall not see Warnie's like again , not for a generation at least and more's the pity.
So I guess let's not be morose. Boxing day this year will be special! Lets enjoy Glenn and Shane combat their timeless skills one last time in Melbourne against surely an English team with still much to prove to an Aussie audience wondering what 2005 was all about.
Posted by: Mick Davidson at December 27, 2006 4:14 PM
Brett Lee is a fearsome strike weapon, Tim - one that Johnson and Tait have yet to come even close to. The fact is that he’d be starting for any team in the world, simply because of the fear he can strike into the opposition, and the ability to come on and take crucial wickets. I can guarantee that he will be partnering Clark with the new ball come next summer and rightfully so. He has bowled well this series, but without much luck; and luck definitely plays a factor in this game. The selectors seem to think that he's irreplaceable, and I'm more than prepared to go with their better judgement.
That being said, it truly is the end of a glorious saga - one that we're not likely to see again any time soon. But I do think that Australian cricket is in very safe hands, and we should be in no way fearful of plummeting to the depths seen in the 80's. We may not dominate sides quite as easily, or notch up as many wins, but I can honestly say that I'm looking forward to the Ashes challenge of 2009.
Posted by: Benjamin at December 27, 2006 6:24 PM
As brilliant as Warne is, it is McGrath's retirement that will sting the most. Australia can be beaten with Warne in the team, as shown last ashes series but McGrath has that aura of unbeatability. As an Englishman, I know that if it was between McGrath or Warne to step on that stray ball at Edgbaston, the right man stepped on it from englands point of view.
People talk about the freakish talents of Warne and Murali and how McGrath is successful through applying the simple arts of bowling. As far as im concerned, thats rubbish. Hes a freak. There wont be another one like him who can have such a hold on some of the greatest batsmen of all time and not be dominated by anyone.
His departure spells the end of Australias easy victories, prepare to see a lot more scrappy series' for australia after this series. Cant wait!
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Tim de Lisle is a former editor of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, Wisden.com and Wisden Cricket Monthly, where he won an Editor of the Year award in 1999. He is now a cricket columnist for The Times and Cricinfo. A former feature writer on The Daily Telegraph and arts editor of The Independent on Sunday, he writes about rock music for The Mail on Sunday and was shortlisted for Critic of the Year in the British Press Awards 2005. He plays cricket in the park with his children, bowling mediocre offbreaks.
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