Wisden overview
The young Glenn McGrath was described by Mike Whitney as "thin - but Ambrose-thin, not Bruce Reid-thin". Much later, Mike Atherton compared McGrath to Ambrose on a vaster scale. Catapulted from the outback of New South Wales into Test cricket to replace Merv Hughes in 1993, McGrath became, after a faltering start, the great Australian paceman of his time. He bowls an unremitting off-stump line and an immaculate length, gains offcut and bounce, specialises in the opposition's biggest wickets - especially Atherton's and Brian Lara's - is unafraid to back himself publicly in these key duels, and has shown himself to be unusually durable. He is a batting rabbit who applied himself so intently that while playing for Worcestershire he won a bet with an Australian team-mate by scoring a fifty. Only in his occasional fits of ill-temper does he fail himself. He rewrote the World Cup record-books in 2003 with 7 for 15 against the outclassed Namibians, on his way to adding another winner's medal to a bulging collection. Greg Baum

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