The Australian bowling legend Glenn McGrath has backed Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood to be successful in the upcoming tour of India.
The hosts are in imperious form and it will be a tough task ahead for the visiting Australian contingent who have lost the test series 4-0 on their previous tour.
Aussies have begun their preparations in Dubai and there have been suggestions passed on by a number of former players. Glenn McGrath has played eight Tests in India and has picked up an impressive 33 wickets during his time in India.
He also heads the prestigious MRF foundation in Chennai and has a very good knowledge of Indian conditions. The legendary pacer has shared his thoughts on the upcoming tour exclusively to cricket.com.au
“(Hazlewood is) tall, strong, and hits good areas,” McGrath told cricket.com.au on Wednesday (February 8). “As long as he keeps bowling good areas and working on that bounce.
“I think sometimes he’s working on swing rather than bounce and getting that carry through. Once he really settles down and gets to know his game back to front I think he’ll be really good.”
He has pointed out that the bowlers will need to adjust their lines and adapt to the conditions quickly if they want success in the subcontinent conditions.
“Ninety-nine times out of a hundred it’s still hitting the deck, hitting the top of off stump,” he said. “A lot of people think that must be easy, but it’s a slightly different length on every wicket.
“There’s not going to be two wickets where it’s just the same length, so you have to adjust to the conditions and that’s where I felt I could adjust quite well.”
However, the 46-year old who is considered as the greatest pace bowler of all time has revealed that it is the batting that could be the problem for Australia.
“Our batsmen have been more the issue in the sub-continent, they don’t know whether to attack or to defend,” he offered. “At times they look like they over-attack, and at times they look like they over-defend – there’s no in-between.
“In Sri Lanka, it just seemed that they went really hard or they just closed up shop. And they tried different things but it didn’t work, so they have to come up with a plan of ‘okay, what shots are we going to play to keep the score rotating’.”
He was quick to point to Matthew Hayden as an example as the latter had a tremendous success in the tough conditions in India as he has taken the attack to Indian bowlers even when other Aussie players were struggling.
“You still have to look at ways to score, and to have the intent of scoring, and I think (former Test opener) Matty Hayden was the perfect example. He didn’t do as well as he would have liked in the sub-continent when he first started, didn’t really have a sweep shot,” he pointed out.
“(But) he developed a very good sweep shot and became a great sweeper, all of a sudden he had a weapon that he would use against their bowlers and did exceptionally well in the sub-continent.
“I don’t see too many of our batsmen sweeping anymore. I noticed when I was commentating for the Matador BBQs (One-Day) Cup that there weren’t many guys playing sweep shots. I’d like to see guys in the team develop that shot like Matty Hayden did. So they need to come up with a plan. At the moment, it’s like the plans they are using aren’t working or I’m not sure what the plan is.”
Australia will travel to India next week as they will play a warm-up game before the prestigious 4 match test series against India. It will be a tough task for the visitors as the hosts lost only two test series at home since 2003-04.