McGrath diary misses the mark

World Cup Diary by Glenn McGrath; published in Australia by Random House Australia

Writing a campaign diary has become one of the more common pursuits of modern sportsmen, much in the same way that military men record their experiences in wartime.

Glenn McGrath, the outstandingly consistent Australian pace bowler, is the latest to join the fray, reportedly getting in just ahead of his skipper Ricky Ponting. Their Test match skipper Steve Waugh has made something of an art form of his diaries.

Having been through two successful World Cup campaigns, and finishing second in a third, McGrath was in an ideal position to make a meaningful contribution to the understanding of what makes the Australians so successful.

After all, one-day cricket is supposed to be a batsman's game, and McGrath has been one of the more successful bowling protagonists who has denied, at last count, 284 batsmen of their chance to prove that theory. Perhaps he didn't want to give away too many trade secrets but the sort of hint he offered in describing how he would bowl to master batsman Sachin Tendulkar in the final was all too rare in this effort.

"We still think their batting revolves around Tendulkar. We will try to tie him up and stop him from scoring by bowling a full-ish length outside off stump with the occasional good bouncer," he said.

There is too much in McGrath's book that merely states the obvious and offers no illumination. Take this phrase: "We feel that if we bowl well to all their [India's] batsmen, we can stop them from scoring as quickly as they would like to and thus build up the pressure on them."

It's difficult not to imagine this basic bowling mantra being dished out every Saturday by schoolboy coaches around the world. Further on in his description of the final, McGrath offers the view that the Australians had yet to play their 'perfect' game. Why that should be the case is not analysed at all.

So many opportunities have been missed in offering something a little different, or compelling, in McGrath's work. How did this tournament compare overall with other tournaments? How did the Australian team compare with its predecessors? Has the standard of batsmanship improved? But nothing has been addressed.

As with many of these types of diary, there is a constant barrage of player nicknames. Yet nowhere is there a readily available list of identities to match the names. They get a bracketed mention when first listed in the text. Forget a nickname and you are doomed to thumb your way back through the book to that mention.

There are other aspects of the World Cup that are under-played. The security briefing the players are given before travelling to Zimbabwe is but one example. McGrath informs the reader that security is at a level the likes of which have never been seen before. But what that security is, is not conveyed.

And it is difficult to believe in this world and age where indiscriminate terrorist bombing has occurred and various other issues, that McGrath can adhere to the view that it is a shame that politics have to come into sport.

Similarly the section on Shane Warne's positive drug test which resulted in him leaving the tour and returning to Australia. Given the way in which drug taking has reached the point where the international community has banded together to set up a world-wide organisation to deal with the problem, it is interesting that the first reaction of Warne's team-mates was to be with him "100 percent."

Having played with him through thick and thin, to have shared the good moments with the bad, that is an understandable reaction. But what of the notion of drug use in cricket? McGrath missed a golden opportunity to make a stand on the matter.

If sportsmen are ever to be recognised for having a viewpoint that is worth considering, they have to look outside the cloistered environment in which they live, where their desire to succeed is balanced by their appreciation that they are part of a vibrant community of which sport is one small, but important, piece.

To paraphrase John Donne, No cricketer is an island, or to quote, more appropriately, C L R James, "What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?"

What indeed!