McGrath ready to fire

Glen McGrath seems to have shaken off his back injury as easily as shaking off a cold.

‘Yes, I feel that I’ve recovered from the injury and that I will soon be back to my best,” the lanky Australian fast bowler said in Johannesburg yesterday.

His words will be music to the Australian’s ears, as most of their star studded bowling line-up was nursing injuries after the English series. Shane Warne had dislocated his shoulder, Jason Gillespie had problems with an elbow and McGrath himself was recovering from a back injury. Their injuries kept them out of the latter stages of the Victoria Bitter series against England and Sri Lanka.

This denied the Australian bowlers important match practice before their World Cup campaign. But McGrath’s comeback game have eased their fears that he may need more time and matches to recover before their opening game against Pakistan at the Wanderers on Tuesday.

His performance in Potchefstroom a week before the game against Waqar Younis’s side will give his captain, Ricky Ponting, lots to be thankful for. Australia’s number one paceman bowled wonderfully in the first warm-up game against Northwest. He troubled all the batsmen and beat the bat on regular occasions.

Unlike a lot of bowlers coming back from injury McGrath didn’t need more than an over to settle. He dismissed opener Davey Jacobs for one and only conceded 11 runs in the six overs he bowled.

McGrath was satisfied with his performance. ‘I felt good running in and immediately had a good rhythm going. I bend my back with a good deal of the deliveries and I never felt any discomfort in my back.”

He says that the game against the Northern Titans today will give him another chance to test his fitness and ease into the rhythm before Australia’s opening game. He will try to complete his 10 allotted overs in Centurion today to test his fitness fully.

McGrath says that he will go flat out in the Pakistani game next week. ‘This is a very important game for us to begin with and we have been focusing on it for quite a while. Personally I want to start off the series with a good spell and help the team off to a good start.”

He says that Pakistan is such an unpredictable team that the Australians will have to be more than 100% ready to face them.

‘On their day they can be the best team in the world, but the next day they can crumble into nothing. We have to be ready to face them at their most brilliant,” he said.

The Australian can’t single out one specific player in the Pakistani side that the Australians see as a major threat. ‘All of their players have the ability to produce something special on any given day. We just have to be ready for it,” he said.