Nielsen tells MacGill to get fit
Stuart MacGill has been given a month to prove he is fit enough to cope with the heavy demands of Australia's upcoming Test schedule
Peter English in Hobart
21-Nov-2007
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Stuart MacGill has been given a month to prove he is fit enough to cope with the heavy demands of Australia's upcoming Test schedule. The back-to-back games that opened the summer severely affected MacGill's recovering knee and the way he bowled in the second innings in Hobart cast doubt over his international future.
Tim Nielsen, the coach, said MacGill had some serious
work to do if he was going to be Shane Warne's
full-time replacement. "That goes without saying," he
said. "We've got three blocks of back-to-back Tests
this summer and if you - not just MacGill but all the
players - can't physically cope there's no way the
players will give themselves the chance to execute
their skills the way they want. That's as simple as it
gets."
MacGill, who had knee surgery last month, now heads
back to New South Wales and Nielsen expects him to
play in the two Pura Cup games before the first Test
of the India series, which starts in Melbourne on
Boxing Day. "You don't need to be the fittest guy to
be competing on the international stage, but you
certainly can't do the things you need to do for five
days in a row unless you've got some physical
soundness about you," Nielsen said.
"Legspin bowling, while it doesn't look like the
strain of fast bowling, puts a lot of strain on knees
and shoulders. When one part of the action isn't
working well it puts more stress on other parts. We've
got to get him as fit as we can."
MacGill's action wasn't working well in Hobart and he
delivered some wild full-tosses in the second innings,
when he gave away more than five runs an over and was
treated harshly by Kumar Sangakkara. It was an
eventful game for MacGill as he battled numbness in
his hand before the knee problem bothered him over the
final two days.
"He bowled very well in Brisbane, but not quite as
well here," Nielsen said. "He's found it difficult
coming back from knee surgery six weeks ago and he had
trouble backing up. We probably didn't make it any
easier for him by enforcing the follow-on in
Brisbane."
Nielsen is an upbeat character and he was so edgy
before the first game at the Gabba that his wife had
to talk to him about calming down. "She said you can't
be like this before every Test," he said. "I've been a
bit more relaxed this week with things being a bit
more normal."
He has tried not to change much in the successful Test
set-up, but he brought the players together to discuss
what they wanted to achieve in Australia's new era.
"We've done a bit of work on how we want to be
perceived as a group," he said. "We've refreshed our
ideas a bit there and I'm pleased to see the players
grab hold of that.
"It's not so much behaviour, we understand where the
goal posts are. There's been a lot of talk about the
new era so we talked about how this team is going to
go about it and make sure that people see that. That
doesn't happen by fluke. We renewed those ideas and
dragged some thoughts from the senior guys about the
next nine Tests or so."
Australia's win in Hobart was their 14th in a row, but
the attempt on the record of 16 is not something that
will consume Nielsen. "I wasn't involved in the past,"
he said. "At the moment it's 2-0, that's all I'm
concerned about. Now we need to start again for
India."
Peter English is the Australasian editor of Cricinfo