Bit long in the tooth now, can’t recall all my scalps: Glenn McGrath
A long-standing myth in the game of cricket claimed that Glenn McGrath, a man with more Test wickets than any other fast bowler in the known universe, possesses an eidetic memory that helps him recall each of his 563 scalps (949 across formats). Not only the name of the batsmen in chronological order, but their mode of dismissal and just how he worked them out.
Eight years after his retirement, that myth was put to the test in a suburban hotel in New Delhi, where the former fast bowler sat at the head of a round table, behind a few bottles of wine (a brand he was promoting) and a few sets of tape recorders.
So is it true, McGrath was asked. He smiled and said: “When I had about 380 (Test wickets), I could picture each one in my mind and was able to write down exactly how I got them out. Some tours I can still remember all dismissals quite clearly.”
Instantly, a random number was summoned. “213, who was number 213, Glenn?”
“213, is it?” McGrath thought aloud. Then, following a considerable pause, he said: “Well, I know I took my 200th in the Ashes, 1999. That was Alec Stewart at the SCG. We went to the West Indies after that, and I could’ve gotten 213 there, but not sure who the man was. So, you got me on that one. Well done.”
The answer, for those interested, was Lincoln Roberts — a top-order bat who played just that one Test in Jamaica, 1999. But McGrath wasn’t going to get away with just one strike. “250, Glenn,” he was told. “Landmark and all. That should be easy.”
“It should, shouldn’t it?” McGrath replied with a chuckle. “I should remember 250 now, shouldn’t I? For some reason I’m struggling with it. So, well done again. Two wickets in your kitty. But look, I’m 45 now, and a bit long in the tooth. My brain is not working as well as it used to.”
In his playing days, that said brain would most certainly have popped out a crisp image of Ijaz Ahmed nicking him to Michael Slater at gully. Because during his playing days, there was a method to the madness of remembering just about everything significant in his career.
“The way I used to go about it was I remembered how many wickets I had at the start of each tour,” said McGrath. “For argument’s sake, I had 119 wickets when I went to England for my first Ashes tour. I took 36 wickets there and ended up on 155.
“Now it’s easy for me to break it down. I know that I took two at Edgbaston, eight at Lord’s in the first innings and one in the second. We then went to Trent Bridge and I got another eight there…” He surely would have carried on, had an enthralled room not burst into a collective, delighted laugh.
There are a couple of feats, though, that even a 45-year old’s selective memory cannot erase. And no, those feats don’t include Wicket No. 500 — an aim that he claims to have set for himself the day he started playing Test cricket. They are, in McGrath’s own words, “Raising your bat for a Test fifty when you’re a number 11 with a batting average of six. And taking a one-handed classic catch on the dive.”
Would he rate them above his wickets, he was asked. “Definitely, without a shadow of a doubt. Right up there with the best of them,” he replied.
“Look, I started the tradition of raising the ball for a five-for (Ashes, 2001). The Fast Bowling Cartel, as we called ourselves, had decided that it was time for us to take pride in our feats quite like the batsmen, who got acknowledged a bit much. But when it was me, the batsman, holding up a bat to a roaring Gabba, I realised just how good it felt.”
McGrath didn’t expand much on the catch (he leapt at deep square leg to shock Michael Vaughan and all of Adelaide in 2002), but watch its Youtube video and you’ll understand why. There, as a six-foot something frame jogs 20 metres by the ropes and dives successfully amidst seagulls, the great late Richie Benaud says calmly on air: “Shuch a shtretch! One of the great outfield catches you will ever shee!”
Even McGrath wasn’t going to forget that.
