I would’ve enjoyed the challenge of bowling to Virat: Glenn McGrath

Australian pace bowling legend Glenn McGrath and grown his connection with India after he was appointed the Director of the MRF Pace Foundation replacing another legend Denis Lillee. McGrath was at there to speak in front of students at the Madras School of Economics- he narrated anecdotes, shared some experience and talked about Indian skipper Virat Kohli.

At the moment in international cricket if one batsman has emerged as the biggest challenge for all bowlers and McGrath feels it would have been a challenge for him. “I would’ve enjoyed the challenge of bowling to Virat. No doubt at all. A couple of guys who I met on the lift today told me “Ah, I bet you’re glad that you aren’t bowling these days.” It is different these days. Batsmen have a different mentality. Especially in the one-dayers and T20s. Making 380 in a one-dayer and only just defending it… I wonder what the bowlers are doing.”

Talking about captaincy Pigeon said batsmen are in a better position to be leading the team. “I never wanted to be captain of the team. Fast bowlers are not the best captains of the team. Not because they can’t. But when you’re bowling you want to be focussed on what you’re going to do in the middle. That’s why I think batsmen are better suited for that role. When they’re batting, they can just focus on batting and not changing the fields or anything like that. For instance, Mark Taylor, when he was on the field, had nothing much to do, except for watching the balls or maybe taking the odd catch.”

He also named Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara as two standout players he bowled to. “Sachin (Tendulkar) and (Brian) Lara are two of the standouts I’ve played against. Sachin was technically great, mentally strong. Lara was very flamboyant, (he’s) got all the shots in the world, but mentally unstable. Brian and I had a bit of a ‘love-hate’ relationship. I’ve spent quite a bit of a time with Brian in the last few years. We’re good mates now. We get off well. He even says that I was not as bad as what he thought I used to be.

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“Sachin has scored few hundreds against us. But he would always wait for a bad delivery. I could sort of tie him down a little bit with good deliveries. Whereas it was difficult to tie Brian down. He would keep hitting boundaries.” McGrath said.