Australia braced for life without McGrath

If anyone should have a handle on what Glenn McGrath's absence means to the Australian team, Shaun Pollock should. McGrath is, after all, Australia's own Pollock. Not as a batsman, in terms of which he used to be Australia's own Courtney Walsh, since he significantly improved. McGrath also isn't nearly as versatile as the South African in the field. And, of course, we don't know what sort of Test captain he might have made. But, purely as a bowler, he's right up there with Pollock.

Apologies to readers who have not spent half the southern summer grinding their teeth through the Channel 9 commentary team's numbing insistence on comparing everything anyone could ever think of anytime, anywhere, to some lofty Australian ideal: "NASA wants to put a man on Mars? Aw, mate, but the view's so much better from Ayers Rock." But there can be no argument about McGrath's status in Australia's cricket history. He has grooved a place among the very best of their players.

Pollock has an illuminating take on what the outback's own automaton means to the team that owes him so much of its success. "When you've got a class act like 'Pidge', who's been around for many years, he is so difficult to replace," he said. "You might get guys who come in and they do a sort of a job for a while. They have games where they are good and they have games when it doesn't go so well. That's all about gaining experience.

"People talk about experience and mention a lot of things about experience, but you don't understand it until you are really out there and doing your job. When you have built up some experience you have a feel for what conditions are like, what you should be doing on that certain day to make things work. You get a good feel because you've been there and done it.

"Some of the guys who come in, not to say they don't have the skills, or aren't as good bowlers, but sometimes they just don't realise what's required on the day. That's the big plus of experience and that's what they can miss. Some of those young guys have a lot of talent and their actions are good, but sometimes it's just that experience you gain from playing 50 or 60 one-day internationals that really does help you on certain days."

McGrath has played a few more than 50 or 60 ODIs - 221, in fact. He has also played 119 Tests. But he is not in South Africa with the Australian team, having done the right thing and withdrawn from the tour after his wife suffered a recurrence of cancer.

Batsmen who face McGrath must wonder whether he files his toenail clippings in chronological order or according to size. There is no more organised, precise, bloodlessly efficient bowler in the game. It's a good thing he blows his top every so often, otherwise we would have to put his heart-rate on the scoreboard just to know he's alive.

The continued pursuit of utter consistency, which the more fallible among us tend to regard as "the last refuge of the unimaginative", as someone once said, has to be McGrath's only remaining reason for dragging himself to another net practice. And if you happen to see these words, Glenn, please take them from whence they come - a South African who has to stifle a groan of apprehension every time you mark out your run-up in matches against our lot.

McGrath's absence, and with it the injuries to Ricky Ponting and Andrew Symonds, have stripped Australia of a fair amount of prickle. Gone, it seems, is the team that rebuffed South Africa almost effortlessly Down Under. In its place is a suddenly vulnerable bunch in which an injury to a fringe player like Stuart Clark is immediately upgraded to a "setback". An Australian Test team sans McGrath might also put the skids under another venerable denizen of the once omnipotent juggernaut. At least, that's according to Gary Kirsten.

"Our batsmen can play Shane Warne out," Kirsten said. "Previously McGrath has been at the other end and he is almost impossible to score off. Naturally batsmen have tried to go after Warne a bit because he is seen as easier to get away than McGrath. Not having him will affect how Australia plays because he and Warne bowl so well together. Batsmen can now try to see out Warne and go after the bowler at the other end."

Australia found out just how valuable McGrath is to their cause in the last Ashes series, when they lost both the matches he missed through injury. Who will dare to step into the space previously occupied by such a giant is not a question to be answered without thorough thought. Do the Australians stick with the men they have on tour, which would mean asking Nathan Bracken to share the new ball with Brett Lee? Or perhaps a recovered Clark? Or do they hark back home and resurrect the career of Jason Gillespie or Michael Kasprowicz?

Bracken seems to feel the gravity of the moment, judging by his delicate dance around the subject. "I'd love to take the new ball ... I enjoy doing it and it suits my style of bowling, swinging the ball," he said. "It's unfortunate for Glenn but it's a chance for me to keep doing what I'm doing. I'm never going to replace a Glenn McGrath, but if I can come in and give something different to the team then I can do a job."

Over on the other side of the fence, the grass is dazzlingly green. "When we got together [after the tour to Australia] there was a lot of energy," Pollock said. "We were laughing and joking and there was excitement in the air." That mood lingers, and it went a long way to earning South Africa victory in the Twenty20 tour opener and the first two ODIs, the second of which was a Makhaya Ntini engineered rout.

A month ago many South Africans spoke of their team as if they were discussing a man with a drinking problem. Now they can't stop toasting their success and talking of winning the one-day series, at least. A major factor in what remains a few wins short of a resurgence is the roaring return to form of Graeme Smith, who smashed 89 not out off 58 balls in the Twenty20 and 119 not out in the first ODI.

"I think he's probably had a good look at his game and had a look at how he got out in Australia, and tried to rectify that," Ponting said of Smith. "It's up to us to come back with something different. We've spoken about him and we know what we want to do."

A subplot in all this is that, in these times of hysterical crowd behaviour, had McGrath been on this tour he would have been treated with the dignity he deserved. The hype surrounding Australia's likely hostile reception in South Africa, fuelled by the disgraceful conduct of some of those who blighted Australian grounds this season, has fallen flat. Why? Because South Africa are winning again.

Designated baddies like Lee and Adam Gilchrist will always be jeered here, and Ponting should brace himself for a verbal mauling when he returns to fitness, particularly if he dares to ask an umpire a question. But McGrath's space would have been respected almost as if he were one of our own. He is, after all, Australia's own Pollock.