McGrath the pantomime villain

Dear old Glenn McGrath is at it again. “I reckon it will be 5-0,” he says of the forthcoming Ashes series. He said it last time too. Once bitten, twice … not shy at all.

Speaking at the Adelaide Oval, he also said, “This is where we’re going to win back the Ashes”. Someone gently informed him that Adelaide is the venue for the second Test, so that’s not actually possible. “Aw well, it will be 2-0,” McGrath replied, “and that’s as near as dammit.”

McGrath’s predictions are always entertaining and, when it comes to the Ashes, always wrong. Australia haven’t beaten England 5-0 since 1921. The last team to win five Tests in an Ashes series was England, who won 5-1 in 1978-79 (Australia had an excuse: several of their star players were signed to Kerry Packer). Even when England were a rabble, a few years ago, they usually took one Test off the Aussies.

“To say anything else,” McGrath explained, “would be negative. If we're going to win 2-1, or 3-2, which games are we going to lose?” Well, they could lose at Perth, where it’s pacy and bouncy, as England look like having the only three bowlers in the series who are very tall and very fast – Harmison, Flintoff and Mahmood.

They could well lose again at one of Melbourne and Sydney, where England, with their supporters flooding in for the Christmas holidays, won one Test on each of their last two Ashes tours. And there could easily be a draw at Adelaide, where the pitch is flat. So the Aussies could win in Brisbane and one of Melbourne and Sydney, and still not regain the Ashes.

McGrath is too shrewd not to realise this. His predictions, unlike his bowling, are not really about accuracy. They are part of the ritual. He is playing the pantomime villain. His words will amuse some of his team-mates and irritate others. They will fire up some of the England players. And they will give the Barmy Army something to sing at him.