Captain Glen..Only if...
Right. For once I am getting straight to the point. We all agree Shane Warne has been one heck of a bowler and has tremendous strategic acumen, as was evident in his last two IPL appearances, leading almost a bunch of novices to ones who look like champions. Well champions once and almost threatened to be the next time. All that Shane Warne touched, tapped and hurled turned into gold. Pens came out claiming Shane Warne was the captain Australia never had. Debate that has got as much to do with his ability with the ball in hand as is his dexterity with the cell phone. There’s a home-grown Champion who got his brush with Captainship pretty late in his career and almost proved the same adage- A captain that India never had- Anil Kumble.
Now then. Think of this name. Glen McGrath. Had he been playing for any other nation, he easily could have had a brush with the top spot for his national side. Not to take anything away from the spin magician, a lot of Warne’s success was derived from the fact that McGrath had tightened the noose around the top order and sent a lot of them back before Warne cleaned up the rest, partly with that twirling ball and partly with his flamboyance.
McGrath has been touted as the one of the best fast bowlers game has ever seen- not so much for his pace, but for his suffocating accuracy with the ball- new and old alike. He almost was the first one to fires the herbal volleys before the big series and get under the skin of opposition. Ask Brain Lara and Sachin Tendulkar who was tougher of the two and stats will give you the answer. McGrath has won almost half of his battles against the Indian maestro. For Lara, Glen has proclaimed proudly, “Lara means to go,” in his characteristic cheeky manner. So how has Shane fared against these two modern maestros? “I have nightmares of Sachin hitting me over my head.” That is why I believe, at the risk of comparing apples to oranges, as fast bowling and spin are chalk and cheese apart, Glen has that slight edge over Shane, Mike Gatting’s dismissal notwithstanding.
So then, why isn’t Glen such a huge rage as Shane is in India? It’s about some smart PR more than anything else is what I propose. Indians have a liking for ‘yes men’. The moment Shane Warne confessed Sachin’s superiority over him; he became an instant hit with the masses in India, almost a darling. Against that, Glen kept leading the verbal assault against the Indians while consistently getting better of the master. The result? Forget the dreams of leading an Indian IPL team Delhi Daredevils, he got just a game in the recently concluded Champions Trophy and predictably got a couple of wickets without conceding much. In the IPL II he got just about a game or two to keep him warm. In his rare outings he has proved that he is just as capable with the ball as he ever was.
So isn’t it a bit surprising that he doesn’t feature as a first choice bowler for his IPL team? Nor can he dream of leading the side. His ability to shake up the top batsman is legendary, clearly a handy asset in the batsman friendly T20 format. He couldn’t possibly have got all those wickets in all forms of the game if he didn’t have a sharp head over his shoulder or wasn’t a team player. You might be tempted to argue that Shane Warne has that X factor or the charisma that Glen doesn’t have. But that doesn’t count for much. There have been more greats who were devoid of that X factor than those who had it. Think of Allen Border, Clive Lloyd or an Arjuna Ranatunga who led the Sri Lankan side to the World Cup victory in 1996. The answer lies somewhere else. Only if Glen was wise enough to praise the Indian batsmen well in time. We love the foreigners who speak the things we love to hear. And we love to hate anyone who has the guts to stand up and put us into our place. Sorry Glen. That's just our way of dealing with criticism. We brush the man who does it below the carpet.
Do you agree???
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