Angus Fraser: The age of McGrath is really showing its age

Glenn McGrath will not admit it, champion sportsmen rarely do, but his time is nearly up. Making this statement brings no pleasure at all, because for the past decade he has been the best fast bowler in the world and it has been thoroughly enjoyable watching him perform.

Yes, when I was playing for England he made my life a misery, but you could not help but admire the way he went about his business. He remains a fit, strong, relentless, ruthless competitor with a heart the size of a watermelon, but there is now something missing, that little something that separated him from the rest.

Even in Brisbane, where he bowled beautifully and took 7 for 103 in Australia's crushing victory, the warning signs were there. With the new ball he looked pretty much the same as ever, but once it lost its hardness there were spells where he looked almost innocuous.

The turgid pitch herehas done little to help his cause, yet the nagging feeling remains that the young McGrath would have found a way to mount a threat. The 36-year-old will still be a handful on a surface that has something in it, but on flat pitches he no longer possesses the spite, the nip, that little bit of zip which made him the complete fast bowler.

And they are not going to come back, no matter how vigorously McGrath trains or how hard he tries. Sadly, after years of punishing physical work, the body of a fast bowler reaches a stage where it no longer does what the owner wants, or what it once could do. When the nip goes, the pacemen struggle to force the pace.

Ricky Ponting, the Australia captain, has clearly recognised this and, judging by the way in which he treated him yesterday, so has Kevin Pietersen. Ponting has used McGrath like a first- change bowler, apart from his opening new-ball spell on the first morning. Brett Lee and Stuart Clark took the second new ball and they have both tried to attack the batsman. McGrath, in marked contrast, has hung the ball outside off-stump, waiting for the batsman to get bored and make a mistake.

Pietersen realised early on that this was a pitch on which he could dominate McGrath. He drove him on the up; he shimmied down the pitch and flicked him through the leg side; he pulled him off a length. And he did all this safe in the knowledge that McGrath had nothing more to throw back at him. It was ruthless stuff as Pietersen tried to finish a once-great bowler off.

McGrath's decline leaves Australia needing to find someone to lead their attack, but the big question is whether any of his fellow pacemen hold the right credentials. It is some job. You set the tone at the start of each session or day, you bowl the crucial overs and you stand out as a beacon of reliability. Stephen Harmison has been unable to cope with the role, and Lee cannot either.

There are few better sights in cricket than Lee in full flight. He has the lot - the good looks, the panache and the athleticism that us journeymen would die for. He is fast, and he can swing the ball too.

But his wickets are costing him 32 runs apiece and he is conceding more than three and a half runs an over; it is not good enough. He needs to start performing. He needs to start bowling with greater consistency, skill and nous if he is to hold on to his place, let alone fill the void left by McGrath, and eventually Warne.

Lee's Test career started with a flurry of wickets - 42 in seven matches at a cost of just 16 runs each. But since then his average has risen steadily. In the following 49 Tests he has taken only four five-wicket hauls, which are not the figures of a champion. He may still look one, but at 30 he is no longer a youngster.

In the opening two Ashes TestsClark has been what McGrath used to be. He has bowled an immaculate line, hit the pitch hard and shaped the ball ever so slightly away from a right-handed batsman. There is no fuss; he just runs in and does the job. He has the little bit of snap that McGrath is now so painfully missing, and so his figures are much more impressive.

Clark's Test career - 31 wickets at under 20 in six matches - has got off to an excellent start, and he has the potential to lead an attack. But he too is no innocent youth. Clark is 31, and probably only has two or three good years left in him. McGrath may have survived until the age of 36 but he is a remarkable athlete.

Shane Watson, Shaun Tait and Mitchell Johnson are three for the future, but they are all raw and in need of time at the Troy Cooley finishing school.

Injury has plagued each of their careers, and Australian cricket needs them to remain fit. They may be required sooner than they think.