McGrath to work with Australian cricketers in India

Melbourne, June 14 (IANS)

Former Australian Test cricketer, Glenn McGrath poses as part of the build up to the Vodafone Pink Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground on January 2, 2013 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)

Australian bowling legend Glenn McGrath will spend the next two weeks in India working with a group of Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) scholars from Cricket Australia’s (CA) Centre of Excellence in Brisbane.

CA are taking steps to ensure there is no repeat of the disastrous tour of India when the men from Down Under lost the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 0-4 earlier this year.

As part of CA’s AIS scholarship programme, the group consisting of Peter Handscomb, Kurtis Patterson, Joel Paris, Gurinder Sandhu, Josh Hazlewood, Matt Fotia will work with McGrath, who heads the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai. Former pacer Craig McDermott will also be working with the group in those two weeks.

“India is so different to Australia in nearly every way. The climate, the conditions, the sheer amount of people there, the food, and then the playing conditions as well. It’s going to be high 30s, early 40s every day. It’ll be pretty warm,” McGrath was quoted as saying by the CA website.

Need for more experience in sub-continental conditions was recognised after Australia’s humiliating series defeat at the hands of India.

“Hopefully, when and if they do move up to play for Australia, they’ve had a little bit of experience in India and it’s not such a shock culturally and the transition is a bit smoother,” McGrath added.