McGrath stands test of time

By Oliver Brett
BBC Sport in Brisbane

McGrath took his 10th five-wicket haul against England

For generation after generation, England have suffered at the hands of Australia's pace bowlers.

But no other Aussie seamer has had the hex on English batsmen for as long, and in as many Test matches, as Glenn McGrath.

This is his 26th Test appearance against Australia's oldest foes, dating back to 1994, and 142 of his 548 Test scalps are Englishmen.

On 10 occasions he has taken five or more wickets in an England innings.

Not long after the end of this Ashes series he will turn 37 and, who knows, he may choose to retire if Australia win back the urn.

Certainly, by taking 6-50 at the Gabba in England's first innings, he has already made a telling contribution to his team's revenge mission.

By Friday night, he had captured the first two of those wickets.

Andrew Strauss, predicted to be England's most effective batsmen out here, and his fellow left-hander Alastair Cook had both been accounted for.

After day two, McGrath explained that despite spending 10 months away from Test cricket to help his wife Jane fight cancer, he had been "as relaxed as I'd felt before the start of any series".

I've always said that the biggest battle you have out in the middle is with yourself Glenn McGrath

His self-confidence also manifested itself as he played an old trick of his, waxing lyrical about his batting (he made eight not out at number 11).

But McGrath, ever the perfectionist, felt he was not quite on the money. He was only "95% happy" with the way he had bowled.

On Saturday, spectators were treated to four further McGrath wickets.

He jagged deliveries into the pads of Kevin Pietersen and Geraint Jones, before cleaning up the tail with the wickets of Steve Harmison and Ashley Giles.

As Giles stalked off the Gabba turf, every Australian player sprinted up to give the grandfather of the team a great big hug.

And McGrath played to the galleries, pretending to hobble over the rope on his way back to the dressing-room, with one hand on an imaginary stick and the other feeling his back.

The old man from Dubbo, New South Wales, had the rest of the day off, because Ricky Ponting declined to enforce the follow-on.

Having had the chance to put his feet up for an hour or two, he said he had almost found that missing 5%.

MCGRATH'S TEST RECORD OVERALL: 120 Tests, 548 wickets, ave 21.41, best 8-24 AGAINST ENGLAND: 26 Tests, 142 wickets, ave 19.96, best 8-38

"I've probably found an extra one or two, but there's still another three or four floating around somewhere.

"I've always said that the biggest battle you have out in the middle is with yourself, and as long as you win that 75% of the time you go OK.

"But to walk off the field with six wickets under your belt, you can't really complain, so I was happy."

And what about that funny little hobble off the field? Who was he poking fun at?

Ever the charmer, he said it was not directed at the media, and was just intended to make people laugh.

But he did say he had started to count up the number of times the word "old" had been used in headlines about him.

At some stage, age will affect the way he bowls. Nobody can predict when that time comes, and it is largely up to McGrath himself when to call it a day.

England's batsmen know they have to face more potential torment from him on Sunday and in Adelaide next week. Even that is more than enough.