Pat Cummins says he wants to play every Test on Australia’s packed calendar, yet Glenn McGrath can see a turnover coming. Australia have roughly 20 Tests in the next 14 months, including an Ashes trip to England where they have not secured an outright series win since 2001. For McGrath, that carrot might keep Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood going, but time, he reckons, will catch up.
“There’s a few [new fast bowlers] coming through at the moment. The Pakistan tours before and after the World T20 didn’t go to plan,” McGrath said at the MRF Academy in Chennai on Monday. “But I think there’s opportunity for quite a few young guys at the moment. Guys like Spencer Johnson have some real pace, but whether they’ve had enough opportunity? I know [Nathan] Ellis has been for a while and [Xavier] Bartlett, they are the next level [in white-ball cricket].”
McGrath is 54 now, yet the competitive instinct remains. When asked how long the senior trio can keep going, he shrugged. “Starc, Hazlewood and Cummins are all in their mid-to-late thirties, aren’t they? You wonder how long they can go. I look at it from an Australian perspective in Test cricket. The Ashes is coming up next year in England and Australia have not won an Ashes in England outright since 2001. Hopefully, there’s incentive for the boys to keep going, but there’s going to be that turnover. You’ve also got Will Sutherland, Jack Edwards and Brendan Doggett. Plenty of young guys there, but we’ll wait and see if someone really puts their hands up.”
Australia’s depth will be stretched. Cummins managed only one Test in last season’s Ashes because of a back problem, while Hazlewood missed the series entirely. If either breaks down again, selectors may have to reach into the Sheffield Shield ranks. Spencer Johnson’s left-arm pace, Nathan Ellis’s skill at the death and Bartlett’s new-ball shape have caught the eye in white-ball cricket; now red-ball evidence is required.
“A lot of it comes back to Shield cricket, I think,” McGrath said. “I don’t know their exact stats in Shield cricket, but state cricket in Australia is quite competitive. South Australia have won back-to-back and a couple of their guys have done well. There’s going to be opportunities out there and we’ll see once they get there.”
Nathan McAndrew, who bowled South Australia to that Shield title in March, has already been endorsed by Ryan Harris, another former Test quick. McGrath nodded when the name came up, though he consciously avoids pushing any single player too hard: form, he says, will do the talking.
Peake on the radar
McGrath also watched 19-year-old Ollie Peake at the academy last year and liked what he saw. In Lahore the teenager became Australia’s youngest specialist male batter on ODI debut, punching 31 off 32 deliveries against Haris Rauf and Shadab Khan on a sluggish pitch.
“It’s a great opportunity for him [to be exposed to Bangladesh conditions]. He’s only a young guy,” McGrath said. “He was also here with the Aussie team at MRF. He’s been a talent identified for a while.”
Whether Peake jumps the queue for next year’s Border-Gavaskar series in India remains to be seen. For now, the more immediate question is how long Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood can keep answering it.
