Glenn McGrath is regarded as one of the finest bowlers cricket world has ever witnessed. Simple and smooth bowling action, not a fearsome appearance or long run-up, but still successful. That's only because of magic he created with his bowling skills without any other external factor.
Former Australia has bowled to legendary batsmen of his time like Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Rahul Dravid, Sanath Jayasuriya and many others.
How well could he bowl to the best batsman in the world, Virat Kohli?
Talking to Sportstar, McGrath said, “Kohli is a quality batsman, a confidence player, and as a bowler, I would cut off his scoring areas and build pressure. He is good through the off-side, I would block him there. He is good off his legs too and again I would deny him runs in that area.”
He added, “Kohli is solid technically, has an aggressive attitude, goes about his cricket with passion and I would like to play on his mind, prevent him from scoring freely. And I would bowl an in-between length at Kohli, neither too full nor too short and cramp him for room.”
The pacer with 563 Test wickets has got more than one plan in his pocket. He explained how to tackle batsman like Kohli, “For instance, you could have an aggressive field and bowl a defensive line. There are areas to score but the ball is not there to be hit. It forces mistakes.”
“The length for this depends from wicket to wicket and from batsman to batsman. When I bowl this line, I would want a full slip cordon. There is nothing worse for a bowler than to see the ball going through an empty area in the cordon," he added.
McGrath refrained from comparing Virat and Tendulkar. He thinks it is very unfair as a different era comes with its own demands and conditions.
“I don’t like to compare eras. Every era makes it own demands and the pitches, generally, are better for batting these days. Sachin, on his day, could decimate attacks. Kohli is a very attacking batsman too.” McGrath tells Sportstar.
But the 48-year-old do feel the current form of Virat can make him surpass Sachin's records, “If he continues to bat the way he is doing now, he could well go past Sachin’s records.”
