Saker compares Anderson, Swann to McGrath and Warne

Australian bowling coach David Saker has said that the English bowling pair of James Anderson and Graeme Swann remind him of the legendry duo of Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne. Anderson and Swann have shared 455 Test wickets
between them, a figure which is quite lower than the tally of 1271 of the two Aussies.

Courtesy to brilliant performance by Anderson and Swann, England thrashed West Indies by nine wickets in the second Test to secure the series 2-0.  Swann and Anderson bagged two wickets each in the first innings. The pacer,
in particular, was quite impressive in the second innings, as he grabbed four wickets only for 43 runs.

Impressed with Swann and Anderson’s superb work, Saker said, "When Jimmy and Swann bowl together it is not unlike McGrath and Warnie at times. McGrath and Warne in tandem were amazing but I have seen some spells from Jimmy and
Swanny that have been just as good or better at times."

"In Sri Lanka [earlier this year] there were a couple of times, especially late on day four in the second Test, when those two reminded me so much of McGrath and Warne. They put so much pressure on the Sri Lankan batting group
and the wickets fell," he added.

The former Victoria and Tasmania seamer rated England’s bowling attack as one of the best in the business. He explained that the current English bowling unit is as strong as of the Aussie teams in the 1990s and early 2000s.

"McGrath was the stand-out in that group but they had Brett Lee, Jason Gillespie, Andy Bichel…they were all fantastic bowlers," he said.

"This group is very skillful too. What they do really well is assess conditions quickly. They will see if it is swinging and, if so, they will stick to our original plans. If it is not doing that, they will come up with some
other plan. They are very skillful – to be able to bowl conventional swing and they say ‘this is not going to work’ and then switch to reverse and attack in different ways – that is a huge weapon to have."  

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Posted by Rana Nasir Ghafoor on May 30 2012. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry