Mcgrath In Test Frame

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McGrath in Test frame
By Michael Crutcher and Jon Pierik
April 21, 2004

GLENN McGrath's outstanding record will buy him an automatic return to the Australian Test squad today but the right-armer must still re-establish himself as the nation's fast-bowling spearhead.

McGrath will be included in the squad to tour Zimbabwe next month after convincing selectors he has overcome the ankle injury that has stalled his Test career for nine months.

Captain Ricky Ponting and the selection panel want to assess McGrath's progress and consider the series in Zimbabwe, where he could confront one of the weakest teams in Test history, and the winter home series against Sri Lanka as the ideal stage.

McGrath's rating as the ironman of Test cricket has eroded since he played the last of 54 consecutive matches from 1998 to 2002.

The 34-year-old has since played four of Australia's 16 Tests, while Jason Gillespie has missed just two matches in the same period to become the nation's new-ball weapon.

McGrath still has the right to re-entry after becoming Australia's most successful paceman with 430 wickets from his 95 Tests at an average of just 21.72.

But chairman of selectors Trevor Hohns last night insisted McGrath was not a guaranteed inclusion for the two-Test series, with 14 likely to head to Harare on May 13.

"No one is an automatic selection but we've been told that Glenn is fit and available," Hohns said.

Possible Australian squad: Ricky Ponting (c), Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer, Damien Martyn, Darren Lehmann, Simon Katich, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Jason Gillespie, Michael Kasprowicz, Glenn McGrath, Brad Williams, Stuart MacGill, Michael Clarke.

* Sri Lankan Muthiah Muralitharan has been urged to temporarily hide his allegedly dodgy doosra as Australia yesterday denied accusations it put pressure on match referee Chris Broad to ban the off-spinner.

The Sri Lankan Cricket Board has sent a letter to the International Cricket Council complaining that the Australian players had, over drinks, influenced Englishman Broad to report Muralitharan for chucking during the third Test in Colombo last month.

The ICC last night said it had yet to receive the letter.

Broad cited the Sri Lankan's doosra - the ball bowled with an off-spinner's action but one which spins from leg to off - as needing further investigation.

Sri Lankan sources yesterday confirmed tests had found Muralitharan illegally straightens his arm by about double the legal limit of five degrees.

The Courier-Mail


cheers bryan..!!