Glenn McGrath believes Australia’s Test quicks will soon need careful rotation, simply because time waits for no-one. Speaking at the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai on Monday, the country’s record Test wicket-taker outlined both the challenge and the opportunity that lie ahead.
“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,” he admitted. “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].”
Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood are all moving into their mid-to-late thirties. McGrath, who squeezed 14 years out of his own Test body, accepts that the current trio will not play every match on Australia’s packed schedule – roughly 20 Tests in the next 14 months.
“Starc, Hazlewood and Cummins are all in their mid-to-late thirties, aren’t they? You wonder how long they can go,” he said. “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.”
Cummins missed all but one Test in last season’s Ashes with a back issue, while Hazlewood sat out the entire series. That fragility, coupled with an ageing core, explains why selectors have already cast the net wider. Western Australia’s Lance Morris and Queensland’s Johnson are two tear-aways earmarked for the future, yet neither has played a Test.
McGrath reckons performances at Sheffield Shield level should still carry the most weight. “A lot of it comes back to Shield cricket, I think,” he observed. “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.”
One bowler who keeps cropping up in conversation is New South Wales all-rounder Nathan McAndrew, praised in March by former Test seamer Ryan Harris as being “ready for the next level”. McGrath did not name McAndrew specifically on Monday, though the implication was clear: if you’re knocking over batters in Shield cricket, you will get noticed.
The 54-year-old is equally intrigued by teenage batter Ollie Peake, who debuted in ODIs earlier this year. Peake’s 31 from 32 balls on a sluggish Lahore pitch hinted at a versatile technique – something McGrath first clocked during a visit to Chennai last winter. “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.”
Peake could come into the frame for next year’s Border-Gavaskar Trophy in India, although that remains speculative. For now, the broader conversation returns to fast bowling and how Australia handle the inevitable turnover. Rotation feels unavoidable; nurturing bite-sized pools of pace looks the only sustainable route.
In the short term, McGrath hopes one more carrot – a first outright Ashes win in England for 25 years – keeps the old firm firing. Long term, he expects the handover to be gradual, even messy at times. As he knows better than most, replacing 1,100-odd Test wickets does not happen overnight.
