Glenn McGrath was the greatest fast bowler I played against: Rahul Dravid

He batted against them with valor; he had the technical master class in his craft to defy them at their best and he seldom let them have an upper hand when he was in the middle that is exactly how Rahul Dravid handled some of the most fearsome fast bowlers the game of cricket has seen. He defended ball after ball while they ran in hard to get the better of him but Dravid stood there like a wall and took it all.

If someone of his stature tags a fast bowler the greatest, he certainly has to be. Having scored some remarkable knocks against the Australians Dravid agreed that it was Aussie great Glenn McGrath who he would term the greatest he has faced. “They [Australia] were the best cricket team in my generation. Amongst them all, the greatest bowler that I played against, not only the greatest Australian bowler, but the greatest fast bowler [that] I played against has to be Glenn McGrath,”

He was at the launch event of the Link Lecture Series where he said that McGrath was relentless and possessed unmatched accuracy. “He [McGrath] was absolutely [brilliant], no one challenged my knowledge of the off-stump as much as McGrath did. He was relentless and gave you nothing. A lot of times, whether he is bowling in first hour of the morning or late in the afternoon of in the evening, he [McGrath] was going to give you nothing, he was relentless [and the] accuracy,” said Dravid.

“He was not mean as he looked, but he could be very very mean with the cricket ball because he gave you nothing. He was one of those guys you, while batting, think how to score a run and where is the extra-run going to come from. He just had that level of accuracy and control.”

“He had good pace, bounce but a good game sense as  well. McGrath was probably the greatest fast bowler I played against,” the Indian batting legend said.