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Brad Hodge was fielding at deep mid-wicket on the SCG boundary in the second one-day final of the 2006/07 summer. At 6.52 pm the 40,000-strong crowd erupted. Until that moment, it had been a frustrating afternoon for everyone, with play interrupted by rain on several occasions. However, that was forgotten for the final over of England’s innings as the mob stood to clap and cheer when McGrath was handed the ball to bowl his last over in front of them, his home crowd. A sixth sense warned Hodge to stay on his toes; he knew McGrath’s luck – ‘arse, not class’, as the likes of Ponting and Gilchrist described it – would ensure something happened. Hodge had taken a brilliant catch off McGrath’s bowling to dismiss Ed Joyce early in the innings and he didn’t want to be caught napping.
‘I think the whole team would’ve thought exactly the same way as me. You could bet your house a catch or a run-out would be on in Glenn’s last over,’ says Hodge. ‘It was going to happen – you just knew it – and I’m sure that like me the other blokes would’ve wanted to be ready for it.’
McGrath realised the crowd sounded louder than normal as he walked to his mark, but the reason for the fuss was initially lost on him. He figured maybe someone had beaten the boredom during the rain breaks by drinking a skinful and now they were streaking. However, the crowd’s applause grew louder and louder with each of his strides towards the bowling crease. McGrath felt annoyed when Paul Nixon drove his first offering for a single.
Ponting – who’d watched in horror at the Cricket Academy all those years ago when McGrath had produced a small, sharp knife and thrown it ‘Jim Bowie-style’ into the cereal boxes he’d lined up – ran the ball over to talk to McGrath. In a different situation the skipper might’ve wanted to tell him to bowl to a certain field or try a special delivery, but on this particular evening that didn’t seem overly important. Instead, Ponting wanted to ensure his old mate appreciated that the cheers and the goodwill flowing from the crowd were their tribute to him.
‘We’d seen it before with Steve Waugh in his last Test, when people flocked to the SCG because they wanted to share the experience,’ he says. ‘It was the same for Glenn. And if he says he thought the people were clapping and cheering because there was a streaker on the field, he’s playing it down – I can tell you, he knew the applause was for him because I told him. We all knew it from the opening delivery of that last over because we looked at each other as if to say, “Listen to this.” I could see he was moved by what was an incredible gesture.’
It took a few seconds for Ponting’s message to register with McGrath. ‘It was a shock, a real surprise that the crowd would do that for me, because not for a second did I think they would do something like that,’ he says. ‘When I look back on that memory now, it still affects me. I am sure if you spoke to Gilly he would talk about the emotion of the moment, and it was very emotional. I might have shown my frustration, my anger and aggression on the field, but I was pretty reserved with the other stuff. I guess I’ve always thought I’m not really all that special. I figured I was good at what I did, but it didn’t go much deeper than that ... but to think back to that game, I realise the emotion from the crowd was really amazing.’
Liam Plunkett scored two runs from the second ball.
Brad Hodge wasn’t the only fielder who was on the alert. Left-arm opening bowler Nathan Bracken had endured plenty of unwelcome stick from yobbos about his long mane of blond hair as he patrolled the ‘cow paddock’ in front of the old Hill area. They’d spent most of the afternoon telling him to ‘go get a haircut’ or to ‘buy a bloody comb’, but they were now yelling support for McGrath. The gesture was so overwhelming Bracken had to force himself not to start clapping as well.
Bracken was struck by the spontaneity of the crowd’s response to McGrath. ‘No-one from Cricket Australia or the SCG Trust jumped on a microphone and said, “Guys, it’s Glenn McGrath’s last over, so make it count.” A few fans rose to their feet and started to clap. Others followed their lead and within seconds the entire crowd was up on its feet applauding him. It must’ve sparked billions of goosebumps around the ground because I was covered in them! I’ve read of how greats like Bradman received that kind of ovation, and while it struck me at the time to stay alert and not to stuff up any chance that might come my way, I took the time to appreciate what was happening around me, because I doubt whether I’ll ever see such an outpouring of emotion from an Australian crowd again. At one stage I thought Adam Gilchrist yelled something out to me because he was looking my way, but he hadn’t. He was looking at the crowd and absorbing the scene; when he caught my eye he simply opened his arms in disbelief, and the expression on his face said it all – he couldn’t believe it.’
Fans in the crowd remained on their feet, still applauding wildly, as McGrath charged in again – and as Gilchrist crouched back down into position, he found himself having to resist surfing the wave of sentiment that was welling up inside him. Gilchrist remembers it as an extremely emotional occasion. ‘I felt a synergy with Pigeon because we debuted together for NSW all those years ago against Tasmania at the SCG. While we weren’t the two closest team members – he had closer mates among what he called the Fast Bowlers’ Cartel – I always felt an affiliation with Glenn because we came through together. The way the SCG crowd responded that day was special, and I remember feeling happy for Glenn ... happy because it was a farewell truly befitting a champion.’
It had been a different story in Melbourne. McGrath’s Sydney farewell came hot on the heels of a final at the MCG – on McGrath’s thirty-seventh birthday – he would have paid to forget. The Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Roebuck described the bowler’s demeanour well: ‘McGrath seemed as cheerful as a farmer whose tractor had broken down.’ The downward spiral had started when Andrew Flintoff bowled him for a second-ball duck. McGrath had later taken a catch at mid-on to help dismiss Ed Joyce, but with England on the verge of disaster at 3 for 33, he dropped a sitter from Ian Bell when he was on 18. Bell went on to score 65. Adding salt to McGrath’s wounds, Bell hit him back over his head for six. McGrath was then involved in a botched run-out of Andrew Flintoff when he was in the early stages of what ended up to be a match-winning stand of 74. The MCG crowd gave McGrath a standing ovation as he left the field with 0 for 53, but no-one dared sing ‘Happy Birthday’.
After the Melbourne game, some wondered whether his effort there would scuttle his chances of making the World Cup tour. A few correspondents thought McGrath then suffered the ‘indignity’ of Gilchrist keeping up to the stumps in his final home match at the SCG. But Australia’s ’keeper was adamant his positioning had nothing to do with the sun setting on McGrath’s career. It was a ploy designed to force the England batsmen to remain anchored to the crease, part of the evolution of one-day cricket. As Gilchrist points out, with batsmen trying to charge the bowlers to put them off their line and length, the wicketkeeper is forced to come to the stumps. He says standing up to McGrath in his last game at the SCG ‘wasn’t a sign he was over the hill or that his pace had dropped so bad he couldn’t get it down there. It was instead a case of him trying to tactically get the pace off the ball; occasionally he’d bowl a quick one and I’d have to try to deal with them.’
Plunkett pulled the third ball of McGrath’s last over high for another two runs.
Up in the Brewongle Stand, Jane, Dale McGrath, his mates Ben and Jock, and Warren Craig watched the last over from the Cricket Australia box. There was not a dry eye among them.
‘I was watching Adam Gilchrist and he had stopped and was looking at the crowd in what I can only describe as amazement,’ says Craig. ‘I think that best reflected how spine-tingling a moment it was. The recognition by the crowd that it was Glenn’s last over began to build up from the moment he was thrown the ball, and it was such a spontaneous thing. Nothing had been planned ... I don’t think anyone could ever hope to plan such a thing.’
The fans clapped until their hands stung, but Plunkett still managed to hit the fourth ball for a single.
Former English Test batsman David Gower, whose career had finished before McGrath’s, took time out from his commentary duties to give an insight into how his countrymen viewed the man from Narromine.
‘He hasn’t [so much] been a thorn in England’s side over the years as the whole damn tree,’ he lamented. ‘For England, playing against him is like being dropped from a great height onto an acacia tree with no clothes on at 40 degrees Celsius – not a pleasant experience. He’s been an absolute pain in the bum.’
Nixon hit two from the fifth ball.
McGrath looked towards Nixon as he prepared to deliver his last ball in Sydney – the last throw of the dice. While he’d been humbled by the crowd’s reaction, he put it aside to summon what Jane has described as his amazing powers of concentration to give everyone what they wanted – a wicket from his final delivery.
‘Just before I started my run-up, I thought of what a dream it had been to take my last Test wicket with the last ball of my over at the SCG,’ says McGrath. ‘Apparently the commentators were saying I’d saved the wicket for my last ball. I thought to take a wicket with my last ball in one-day cricket at the SCG would be a fairytale. I planned to bowl a yorker, but I bowled what was maybe the worst ball ever; it was a shocker – a slow full toss on leg stump. However, I believe in fate ... I believe you create your own destiny and I also believe things like bowling the worst ball imaginable happen for a reason.’
Nixon lashed out at the delivery and it flew towards Brad Hodge in the outfield. In the short time the ball took to reach him, some people wondered how on earth anyone could cope with the pressure the Victorian was under.
‘I could feel the anxiety and the pressure on me because it was the big finale to Glenn’s career at Sydney,’ says Hodge. ‘But I also knew it was always going to happen, that it was going to be a case of, “What could go wrong in his last game?” And the ball came straight to me. It had been really noisy throughout the over while the crowd farewelled him, but there was a period there when it went really, really quiet.’
Hodge’s eyes were like saucers as the ball soared towards him.
‘I knew I was going to catch it,’ he says. ‘I had to catch it. It was pretty much the fairytale ending for such a wonderful career. It was so perfect that I realised nothing could go wrong in that instance. But I was still pretty nervous sitting under it, actually.’
As Michael Hussey looked on, he couldn’t help but wish he was in Hodge’s shoes – but not because he doubted his teammate’s ability to perform under pressure. ‘I would’ve loved to have been that one position around from where I was in the field, to have been standing where Brad was, because it would have been a great honour to take the catch for Pigeon’s last wicket on his home ground,’ says Hussey. ‘The farewell was unbelievable. It was great to be there and to share the moment. And while I was thinking “I wish that was me” as the ball flew towards Hodge, I knew there was no way he was going to spill it.’
McGrath, however, held his breath as the scene unfolded before him. He accepted that how he’d finish his international career at Sydney was now in Hodge’s normally safe hands. He took nothing for granted – after all, McGrath had dropped a sitter during Australia’s defeat in the first final in Melbourne, and he’d been battered by the press for it.
‘So the ball was in the air, and while you never like to celebrate before the catch is taken, I got ready. I watched and I hoped,’ says McGrath. ‘The build-up to the last ball was incredible, because I couldn’t believe the crowd would stand and clap me the way it did. I spared a quick thought for Hodgey as the ball was in the air, because I know how tough those high catches are. People watching on think they’re easy, but so much goes through your mind from the moment it leaves the bat and goes to your hands. There’s that little voice screaming in your head not to drop it. But I really wanted Brad to catch it because, apart from the fairytale, I also thought it would be the perfect way to finish for the crowd. I liked the idea that they might get something back for what they did in that last over.’
The ball fell down towards Hodge’s hands, and the instant he snaffled it his heart started to beat again.
‘It went straight to me. It was a big thing to get the last wicket in Sydney and it came straight to me,’ Hodge says. ‘Once it was in my hands it felt great.’
Geoff Lawson called that last over for ABC Radio. He had predicted the odds were with McGrath to get a wicket, but it was the emotion-charged farewell from the fans that made a lasting impression on him.
‘I love the game and I am moved by the little things people do,’ he says. ‘Players’ last matches don’t often do that much for me, but McGrath’s – that was simply outstanding. Sometimes as a player you don’t realise how much the fans feel for you. I’ve only realised that in the years since I’ve retired. You find out that people liked the way you played. It’s great.
‘As a player, you acknowledge your fans, you appreciate them, but I think you don’t understand how much you become a part of their lives. As a fan, I remember sitting in the old Bob Stand at the SCG with a mate from Wagga during the 1974/75 season, and I remember hearing John Edrich get hit in the ribs. I watched Thommo bowl side-on and I couldn’t see the ball! I remember thinking to myself, “These guys are gods!”
‘And Pigeon is a legend in every sense of the word. He’s won games, he’s been gutsy with the bat, athletic in the field. He cussed himself a lot but he had a great respect for the sport. The people who watch the game take all that into account. It gets people in the heart and the recognition he received was special. Okay, you get paid well to play the game, but the recognition from people who follow the game is the ultimate reward, and that day in Sydney they certainly recognised Glenn for all he’d done.’
McGrath, who finished his 10 overs with a respectable 2 for 41, was mobbed by his team-mates after Hodge took the catch. The crowd was delirious.
Australia lost to England that night when the Duckworth– Lewis method was implemented to reset the run target after more rain. The Australians couldn’t reach the revised total of 187 runs from 27 overs, finishing at 8 for 152. McGrath did not have to bat. It was the first time in 15 years the home side had lost the annual tri-series trophy finals. While this provided their critics with ammunition to suggest Australia’s upcoming World Cup defence was in tatters, McGrath’s team-mates were bitterly disappointed to think the defeat had somehow let him down.
‘It was such an unbelievable occasion and it was just a shame we couldn’t win that game,’ says Ponting, summing up the feeling of his entire team. ‘A real shame.’
McGrath stayed in the dressing-room a little longer after the game than normal. He enjoyed a few quiet drinks with his team-mates and the opposition, and he enjoyed the fact Dale and his mates from the bush were there to savour the moment.
‘I didn’t want a big fuss made about me after the match,’ says McGrath. ‘We were headed to New Zealand to play the Kiwis in the Chappell–Hadlee Series and then there was the World Cup. After the game I packed up my kit, a few more people than normal came into the dressing-room, and that was it. I was really disappointed we lost – it was a bit of a sour note. But I guess in the big picture, that farewell from the crowd at the SCG – it was something, wasn’t it?’