Redbacks
International Captain
If he had played for India instead of Australia, do you think India would have been world number 1 at any stage during the golden period?
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The better CRICKETER Wasim or McGrath
- Thread starter smash84
- Start date
robelinda
International Vice-Captain
Quite possibly. Most likely wouldve beaten Australia on that 03/04 tour with a better opening bowler. We plundered many runs off Nehra, Pathan, Agarkar etc, Ponting feasted. Australia was a much more fearsome team with McGrath in it, im 100% convinced of that. Warne could do anything but he needed McGrath, maybe just a little.....
silentstriker
The Wheel is Forever
Yes. Up until around 2001-2002, India's batting bar 1-2 players was terrible overseas as well, so probably around 2003-2004ish there was a real good chance I think.
Bun
Banned
I think in any situation if am presented with a choice between selecting Wasim and McGrath, I'd have to go for the latter. I know Wasim's batting puts him slightly ahead in terms of allround capabilities, but the incremental gain from McGrath's bowling more than nullifies that. Pigeon is an absolute absolute legend. wasim merely a legend.
Bun
Banned
A very interesting question.
I think the answer to that would be an emphatic yes.
Because, if you take India's batting lineup from say 2002, it has more or less been constant, save for the no.6 and no.2. But it lacked a world class pace bowler back then. We were essentially a one man army in terms of bowling, but there was a limit to what poor Kumble could be expected to do everytime. But then towards 2007, Zaheer started to blossom into one, and we saw the remarkable transition from an also ran to a world beater.
McGrath's presence would've definitely resulted in a similar elevation during the early 2000s.. plus i believe Kumble too would've ended up with much better figures with him.
vcs
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Was probably doing him a bit of a disservice there but the SA bottling thing only applies to ODIs (WCs) TBF. In Tests, Pollock's stats are very comparable to Wasim's.
Dunno, just feel McGrath's better than his peers by a small but definite margin, and it's hard to define it by numbers.
vcs
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Hmm... they just didn't turn up at times against Australia after talking themselves up. I guess you could call that bottling in a way.
smash84
The Tiger King
hmmm I do get the feeling that Wasim being undersold here as a cricketer. He could do pretty much everything with the ball although as a bowler McGrath takes it. and wasim was a better fielder too. Batting of course no comparison.
So it all boils down to how much of a difference there really was between the bowling of the two. Was it substantial enough????
pretty much all teams bottle it at some time or the other. just to show the importance of perspective in this, i could argue that the biggest bottle jobs i have ever seen have been performed by the incomparable aussies -- against the windies in 99 and against the indians in 01 and in the last series!
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bagapath
International Captain
we can be confident that mcgrath was never involved in match fixing, as confident as you would be with miandad or dravid. OTOH, akram may have sold his services to dodgy characters on occasion, according to qayyam report. that makes mcgrath a safer bet to have in your team.
anyways, even purely on cricketing terms, i believe mcgrath was far ahead of wasim as a bowler that i am ready to overlook the few extra runs akram would score and go for pigeon every time i have to choose between them.
anyways, even purely on cricketing terms, i believe mcgrath was far ahead of wasim as a bowler that i am ready to overlook the few extra runs akram would score and go for pigeon every time i have to choose between them.
Burgey
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McGrath wasn't playing for us in that series, out of interest.
Prince EWS
Global Moderator
at how not only has everything I wanted to say been said already, but how the people who said it actually credited it to me before I'd even opened the thread.Looks like I don't actually need to post here anymore; people just post my thoughts for me. So awesome considering how lazy I am.
Bun
Banned
There are primarily two things here...
1. Talent - I think more or less both of them are on equal footing. Both possessed amazing skills. Wasim perhaps projected them in a more diverse fashion than McGrath which brings me to...
2. Discipline - McGrath channeled his skills into untiring pursuit of art of discipline. By the end of his career, he was more or less a bowling machine equipped with a brilliant human brain. Wasim was brilliant, a master, but end of the day he was a human too. Perhaps it added to his "oomph factor". I've seen people saying McGrath was boring and all that. But McGrath even at 37 could run in, bowl and be the best on the planet.