21
Courtney Walsh lugged his bags through Jamaica’s international airport in October 2005 when a stranger – who struck the paceman as appearing wide-eyed and breath less – sidled up and announced Glenn McGrath had just ended Walsh’s reign as the game’s most successful fast bowler. There was a pregnant pause before the stranger added that the Australian bowler had trapped Brian Lara LBW on the second day of the International Cricket Council (ICC) Super Series Test against the World XI at the SCG. The game, which pitted the world’s best players against the world’s best team (Australia), was granted Test status and while it promised much it delivered little, because the Australians dominated the game from the outset.
The man continued to babble, saying McGrath was a great bowler and Walsh shouldn’t feel disappointed because he’d always be remembered as a champion by his people and cricket-lovers all over the world. Walsh would hear similar sentiments over the next few weeks but he nevertheless felt a strange calm. There was no sense of loss or regret because he’d accepted long ago that the record of 519 Test wickets would fall – after all, they’re set to be broken. Now the day had come, the Windies great was happy it at least went to someone he considered worthy of the honour.
‘There was no disappointment,’ says Walsh. ‘In fact, I was very happy for Glenn, just as I was for Murali when he passed the record first [in 2004]. I think Glenn will be remembered as someone who gave his all for his team and country; a true servant of the game and a great fast bowler. I had no problem with him passing me.’
For McGrath, leapfrogging Walsh as cricket’s most successful fast bowler was a momentous occasion. He had spoken about it five years earlier when he was asked by the media to name his hopes and aspirations. And McGrath paid homage to the former record-holder at the press conference held at the end of the day’s play: ‘It’s a big honour because Courtney was a cricketer I looked up to and admired,’ said McGrath. ‘He was a freak of a player who competed for 21 years straight without hardly taking a break.’
When McGrath dismissed Lara for just 5, it was the four-teenth time in ten years he’d fallen to the Australian. The West Indies great looked angry at himself and his anguish was extended when umpire Rudi Koertzen sought clarification from the third umpire ‘upstairs’, Darrell Hair. As he waited, Lara replayed the shot as if to chastise himself for getting it wrong the first time. McGrath was certain Lara was out. Casting a playful smile towards his old foe, he said, ‘I think it’s bad news, Brian.’
It took two very long minutes – an eternity for McGrath and his team-mates – for Hair to reach his conclusion. McGrath was right: it spelled bad news for Lara. At the time, McGrath’s record suggested he was cricket’s big-game hunter, having taken the Test scalps of Mike Atherton on 19 occasions, Lara 14, Stephen Fleming eight, and Tendulkar and Jacques Kallis six. Shane Warne says the challenge of bowling at the big names brought that extra something out of his lanky brother-in-arms.
‘When a Brian Lara or Sachin Tendulkar came in, Glenn wanted to get them out,’ says Warne. ‘He wanted to be the man to get them out. You can see in most people’s eyes they don’t want to bowl at the big boys through fear of being whacked, but Pigeon’s approach was, “Give me the ball, I want to get him.” I always thought it was a wonderful sign that he wanted to test himself against the best, and that was what made him great rather than very good. Glenn wanted to be the man.’
For McGrath, dismissing Lara added to the occasion of entering the record books – and the image of Lara trudging back to the visitors’ dressing-room revived a treasured memory.
‘The last time I dismissed him before the World game was when I took a hat-trick and he became my 300th Test wicket. It was a long time between drinks. I remember before bowling to him in the World game that I noticed the new ball was dipping around. When Brian came out to bat I decided to throw him the bait immediately; I’d bowl the first two balls across him and then attempt to sneak one back for the “kill”. I guess what surprised me most was it actually worked ... Lara went across his wicket and the ball swung back and hit him in front. I knew straight away he was gone, but the longer we waited for the third umpire to make his decision, the more I thought he might be given not out.’
McGrath admits he became motivated by the fast bowler’s currency – wickets and milestones – early in his career. He studied hours of footage at home, hoping to pinpoint weaknesses that could be exploited; and he also visualised bowling at his opponents, a mental exercise that helps to reinforce positively how an athlete hopes to perform under pressure. His team-mates, former skipper Mark Taylor included, smile nervously when they reveal that McGrath could name any batsman he’d dismissed, their number on his personal tally and how he’d dismissed them – like a party trick. Fighter aces in the Battle of Britain could not have had such recall for dogfights and “kills”. Although McGrath did find it hard to rattle off randomly the names of, say, his 83rd, 109th and 278th wickets towards the end of his career. Perhaps it was a sign that cricket’s big-game hunter really was at the end of his tether.
Stuart Clark, who followed McGrath first at Sutherland and then in the Australian Test team, has a theory that Pigeon didn’t start off playing for milestones and goals. Clark bases his assumption on his own feelings as he homed in on his first significant Test milestone ahead of the First Test of 2007 against Sri Lanka – his 50th Test wicket.
‘I set milestones when I was younger but I was bad at it,’ he says. ‘I focused too much on them. I started setting game-by-game goals: do well in this game, move on to the next. I don’t think Glenn was milestone-orientated when he started playing. I doubt very much that he would’ve said, “I’m going to take 563 Test wickets,” after his first Test. Maybe that became his driving force in time; you need driving factors and I imagine Glenn realised them.’
Brad Haddin stresses that McGrath’s seemingly insatiable appetite for wickets was never done at the expense of the team, be it NSW or Australia. The wicketkeeper used McGrath’s final World Cup campaign to illustrate how he was definitely team-and country-first.
‘Glenn was a great competitor and a great guy,’ says Haddin. ‘But he was also for the team, and we saw that in the latter stages of his one-day career when he gave up the new ball to Brett Lee and Nathan Bracken to play a different role. With him, it was always about what was best for the team.’
Nevertheless, when McGrath retired he reflected on his greatest moments:
‘Other things stand out, too,’ says McGrath. ‘I remember bowling to Aamer Sohail at the Gabba in 1995. He had batted really well, and I decided to come around the wicket. He was on 95. I bowled a reverse-swinging yorker and he smashed it through the covers for four. That took him to 99 and I used the first five balls of the next over to try to set him up. On my last ball, it swung well and went straight through him and hit middle stump. Throughout my career I kept the ball up and hit the right area to build up pressure on the batsman. However, when I worked to a plan and it paid off, it just brought me so much pleasure.’
McGrath’s résumé boasts everything a fast bowler could ever hope to achieve, with an innings of 61 and a classic catch at Adelaide thrown in for good measure. The only jewel missing from the crown was ten wickets in an innings, though he came close with eight against England at Lord’s and eight against Pakistan at the WACA.
‘I was lucky to be able to cross a lot of things off. A lot of it was things you could only dream of and hope they happen. There are special moments and, from a selfish point of view, I treasure them because they were out of the ordinary.
‘The hat-trick against the West Indies at the WACA in 2000 was definitely one of those moments. I’d stirred the media before the Test and said Sherwin Campbell would be wicket number 299 and Lara 300. I didn’t think about 301...’
On that day, McGrath – operating from the Swan River end of the WACA made famous by his childhood hero Dennis Lillee in the 1970s and early ’80s – became only the eighth Australian to take a hat-trick in the Test arena when he sent Campbell, Lara and Jimmy Adams packing. The exclusive club was established over 120 years before when Fred ‘the Demon’ Spofforth took a hat-trick against England in 1878/79. Hugh Trumble (1901/02 and 1903/04), Jimmy Matthews (twice in one match in 1912), Lindsay Kline (1957/58), Merv Hughes (1988/89), Damien Fleming (1994/95) and Shane Warne (1994/95) are the other members.
‘When Brian came in to bat, I knew what I wanted to bowl,’ McGrath recalls. ‘I’d knocked him over a few times so I decided to bowl the ball straight at the stumps, hit the deck and commit him to play at it. I thought if the ball went away a little bit on the seam he could nick it – and he did – but my heart was in my mouth as I watched Stuey MacGill juggle the ball before finally taking it.
‘I was on a hat-trick and, while I was really excited, I decided not to bowl the ball straight at the stumps when Jimmy Adams took strike, because that was just what a batsman would expect. I bowled the ball so it dug in around his ribs. I figured he’d play at it. I didn’t think the ball was steep enough, but he fended the ball off the shoulder of his bat and it popped straight up to Justin Langer at short leg. “Lang” was someone you could rely on to do the job and I was bloody pleased he came through again.’
Langer, who prided himself on the loyalty he felt towards his band of brothers, would have willingly lost an arm before dropping what he considered to be a straightforward catch: ‘It wasn’t a hard catch at all. It was straightforward, very basic. But you don’t take them for granted ... and you don’t celebrate until after you catch the ball. But even though there was a lot hanging on it for Glenn, that was one of the easier catches I took.’
While McGrath celebrated his hat-trick, he remembered thinking as he strolled back to field on the boundary how lucky he was that his career coincided with what many argued was perhaps cricket’s greatest fielding team.
‘The hat-trick was a tremendous achievement; one of those special moments you dream about,’ he says. ‘But I was so appreciative of the fieldsmen I played alongside. I was so spoiled because the calibre of fieldsmen who played for Australia during my time was brilliant. I had blokes such as Mark Taylor, Mark Waugh, Ricky Ponting, Shane Warne and Matt Hayden in slips. And then there was Ian Healy and Adam Gilchrist, two of the greatest ever wicketkeepers – they helped get me a great deal of my wickets.’
England’s vice-captain Marcus Trescothick was the bookies’ favourite to present McGrath with his 500th wicket when the bowler marked out his run-up at Lord’s during the 2005 Ashes series. British bookmaking agency William Hill listed him at $3.30 as the man most likely to be McGrath’s historic dismissal. McGrath’s family were all at Lord’s, waiting to celebrate him becoming only the fourth man in the game’s history to take 500 wickets.
‘I was on the verge of getting my 500th wicket at Eden Park against the Kiwis, and even though I was taking a few wickets, some of the blokes were adamant I was holding back to take it at Lord’s,’ says McGrath. ‘One thing about my career is I never didn’t try to take a wicket. To be honest, Lord’s, the home of cricket, was the ideal place to reach that kind of milestone, but against New Zealand there were three wickets left, and I would have had to take each of them to get 500. I was committed to doing it, but I have to admit I felt relieved when Daniel Vettori hit a catch down towards me and I took it. It was then taken out of my hands and I’d have to try my luck at Lord’s.’
Kevin McGrath was sitting among a sea of English supporters when his son lived up to the faith the bookies had placed in him – and McGrath and Langer combined to dismiss Trescothick for 4. Words couldn’t describe the pride he felt.
‘They’re emotional moments,’ says Kevin, picking his words carefully. ‘I was at the Sydney Cricket Ground when he took his last Test wicket with his last ball. The prime minister, John Howard, was sitting next to me, and I’ll never forget how he leapt to his feet and yelled, “What a fairytale finish!” – and he shook my hand. I felt, well, funny ... as in emotional, because they are special moments. But Lord’s for Glenn’s 500th wicket was the highlight of my life, it was unreal.
‘A friend of ours mentioned to the people around us I was Glenn’s dad and the response was incredible. People shook my hand and made a fuss. When he took the 500th wicket, you would have thought I’d run out and taken the wicket for him. People were so happy for him to get the wicket even though he was Australian. The crowd was pleased to see some history at Lord’s and their reaction was unbelievable. I’ll never forget it. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and, of course, was stuck in front of a television camera. I did the interview thinking because I was in England no-one back home would see it. But it was played on Sunrise the following morning and I copped heaps!
‘But seeing Glenn take 500 wickets was amazing. As I tell people, I’m a failure. I tried to make a farmer out of my son and he became a great cricketer.’
For Glenn’s mum, Bev, it was also a highly charged, emotional thing to see her son establish himself as one of the sport’s genuine all-time greats. That one dismissal made all the hardship and occasional heartache worth every second.
‘He had a lot of knockers, but Glenn became the number one bowler in the world,’ Bev says proudly. ‘It’s because of what Glenn achieved I tell people, “You’ll never know how you can go unless you have a go.” I was proud to be there to see him take his 500th wicket, it was special. Things like that can pass you by if you’re not careful, but I’m happy I was there for the important times.’
McGrath celebrated his 500th wicket by taking 5 for 53 in the first innings of the Lord’s Test and 4 for 29 in the second. It was a ruthless display that helped to set Australia up for victory by 239 runs. Shane Warne nominates that effort as one of McGrath’s finest moments: ‘He was outstanding. It was perfect and I put it up there with his 8 for 24 against Pakistan at the WACA. I can also tell you about the times he didn’t get the wickets but bowled just as well. When conditions are in your favour, you should get good rewards. If you bowl consistently over a period of time, you’ll have one of those days when things just click and things can go your way. But Lord’s 2005, that was one of his best efforts.’
Now he’s retired, McGrath expects the day will come when his record as Test cricket’s most successful fast bowler will be bettered. But for someone who fought so hard for his initial recognition, then for his selection into bush representative teams and ultimately against the threat of being dropped from the national side, it is surprising to learn that the record is something he’ll quite happily surrender.
‘The good thing about cricket is the respect we have for each other,’ he says. ‘It pleased me to learn Courtney Walsh was happy for me when I passed him. I think there is a sense of brotherhood among all fast bowlers because we understand what we have to go through to bowl; it doesn’t matter what their nationality or culture is. Courtney and I always got on well. He bowled 21 years straight, and that makes him a special athlete ... I think I was like him, in the sense that the more I bowled the better I felt, while other blokes needed to rest.
‘When you look at the fact Warnie, Murali and Kumble have all taken over 600 wickets, you have to be impressed; they are amazing figures, and when you think of the amount of time it has taken for them to achieve that, it is mind-boggling. When I thought of who might be the next fast bowler to take 500 wickets I pinpointed Shaun Pollock, but he’s since retired. Brett Lee is bowling the best I have ever seen him bowl. You can tell he loves being the main bowler. Who knows? Maybe it’ll be him. Though bowling at the pace and speed he does is tough, and there’s more danger of an injury than someone who bowls at my pace. He might get there; the way he bowled during the 2007/08 season was sensational.
‘What I have learned in retirement is that I am very happy with what I achieved. I don’t feel as if I have anything to prove to anyone or myself. If seven people go past the record, well, that’s fine by me because I’m not attached to it; I hold it but I don’t own it. I can’t feel jealous – or concerned – if someone breaks the record. If someone is good enough to beat the figure and tough enough to overcome all the hurdles fast bowlers need to contend with, I’ll respect them. While it is nice to have these milestones, awards, accolades and even 500 wickets – what I realise is that at the end of the day, it isn’t anyone’s right to have them. It’s a privilege.’