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In December 2006, one of the most consistently effective fast bowlers of all time announced his retirement.
Over the last decade Glenn McGrath’s achievements (stats) have been cited often enough but perhaps some haven’t quite been put in sufficient perspective to honour his stature in cricket history.
ESPNCricinfo for instance is careful: the greatest Australian fast bowler of his time.
Stats alone don’t set ‘great’ above ‘good’. Context does that.
But that’s the context isn’t it? After 12,000 deliveries, your arm gets worse, not better. Wear-and-tear weakens everything: pace, line, length, variation. It messes even the holiest of stats ‘reducing’ impact over time, over sufficient time ‘halving’ it.
McGrath bowled over 42,000 international cricket deliveries (29,248 in Tests, 12,970 in ODIs). A given for ‘all-time’ great slow-bowlers but gruelling for even the greatest pacers, medium-pacers.
Tests
Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner, Curtly Ambrose held their superb averages at about 21.
The context?
McGrath held his average by the scruff of its neck at about 21 after bowling 11,664 more deliveries than Marshall (or about as many as in Andy Roberts’s entire career), 16,079 more deliveries than Garner (about as many as in Waqar Younis’s career), 7,145 more than Ambrose.
Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Younis held their averages of about 23.
The context?
McGrath held his at about 21 after bowling 9,790 more deliveries than Imran, 13,024 more deliveries than Younis, 6,621 more than Akram.
Jeff Thomson’s average was 28 from 18,713 fewer deliveries than McGrath. Bob Willis’s 25 from 11,891 fewer deliveries, Holding’s 24 from 16,568 fewer deliveries, Dennis Lillee’s 24 from 10,781 fewer deliveries.
Even Richard Hadlee’s rightly revered 22 was from 7,330 fewer deliveries. Lance Gibbs was tested but even with 2,133 fewer deliveries than McGrath, his average was a high 29.
McGrath never looked the part, no more harmless than an overgrown boy-scout. No headband, no fiery moustache or flaming mane, no terrifying run-up. But for all the glowing prose about others could they contain and dismiss batsmen as consistently as McGrath?
Were those ‘giants’ to bowl 5,000 more deliveries, let alone 10,000 more, would their averages hold?
Many ‘legendary’ arms were spared simultaneous ODI punishment partly; others altogether.
In spite of the relative absence of protective gear in the 1970s and 80s, did batsmen actually find it easier to stay at the crease, to score and to hell with those frightening essays on the quicks?
Only Courtney Walsh’s average of 24 (771 more deliveries than McGrath) comes close in terms of near-religious effectiveness against relative punishment of the Test-bowling arm.
No 21st century pacer has been tested as much but even here McGrath towers. He bowled 2,408 more deliveries than James Anderson but conceded 1,124 fewer runs and held his average at just over 21 to Anderson’s already embarrassing 28.
If not for his devastating bowling-mate Warne (with his 37 five-fors) McGrath may have bettered his own record of 29 five-fors.
Unsurprisingly, some 30 per cent of McGrath’s were maidens.
Of 4,000+ over bowlers, only two came close.
But the context?
Shaun Pollock secured 30 per cent maidens but from 816 fewer overs, Gibbs secured 29 per cent but from 355 fewer overs.
Other 4,000+ over bowlers are some distance away: Walsh 23 per cent maidens, Anderson 25 per cent, Kapil 23 per cent.
Akram (23% maidens), Ambrose (27%), Hadlee (22%), Imran (22%), Lillee (21%) bowled fewer than 4,000 overs.
Marshall (21%), Donald (26%), Steyn (22%), Younis (19%), Lee (20%), Garner (26%), Holding (22%), Willis (19%) bowled fewer than 3,000 overs, too few to be counted with McGrath.
Thomson (a modest 17%) bowled fewer than 1,800 overs, too few to be counted with others, let alone with McGrath.
ODIs
Among 62 bowlers with an average of ‘25 or below’ only five pacers, medium pacers were tested with having to bowl 10,000+ deliveries: Lee, Akram, Younis, Pollock, McGrath and McGrath is the only one with an average ‘below 23′.
Among two dozen averaging ‘below 23′ McGrath is the only pacer tested with nearly 13,000 deliveries. Barring Donald and Hadlee (far fewer deliveries) no one in that list was tested with having to bowl even a meagre 6,000+ deliveries.
Among 53 bowlers with an economy rate of ‘below 4′ only six pacers, medium pacers were tested with 9,000+ deliveries: Ambrose, Pollock, Kapil, Walsh, Akram and who else, McGrath. No one else had to bowl even as few as 7,500 deliveries.
Legacy
Should we work harder before deciding McGrath’s place in cricket history? Is he just the greatest ‘Australian’ fast bowler ‘of his time’?
Unlike his predecessors and successors McGrath had to bowl at the widest range of the most tested batsmen ever and 40 per cent of his Test victims were prized higher-order batsmen.
Even with the most cautious, most guarded batsmen in cricket history McGrath found a way. He dismissed Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman, on five occasions each. Dravid rated McGrath the toughest fast bowler he’s faced: “When he was bowling it was very difficult to judge your off stump. He was aggressive whether he was bowling his first or 25th over he was always at you, probing and asking questions.”
McGrath was perhaps misunderstood as a ‘metronome’. That’s unfair to his craft. His mastery, precision and control, intimidated. Not theatrics or showmanship but what he classed as “the perfect game, where every ball went exactly where I wanted.”
Ricky Ponting has said that McGrath was the most difficult to lead: “Everyone will think that he’s the easiest, give him the ball, he comes on and he’d do a job for you. You had to get the ball off him as well. I’d tell him ‘that’s enough mate, have a rest’ and for the next 10-15 minutes he’d be walking with his sleeve over his mouth calling me every name under the sun. He’d stand at fine leg abusing the crowd just because he wasn’t bowling.”
Nice grouse for a captain, to have eh?
Enduring greatness (not just for this or that era) demands more of you than mere achievement (stats) and asks: all right, but were you tried long enough, under different conditions? Tested differently and against the most proven?
Unlike some others McGrath can quietly answer “Well, yes”.
That’s not hype, it’s just honest.
Rudolph Lambert Fernandez writes on film, music, cricket
Twitter: @RudolphFernandz
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