Bowling great Glenn McGrath feels that the ongoing Ashes series is lacking the required passion due to too much bromance between England and Australian players, which he largely attributed to the IPL and Big Bash. Mcgrath said that he would prefer to see a close battle in the ultimate contest instead of “political correctness”.
“I remember, when Nasser Hussain came out here with England, they weren’t even allowed to talk to us or say ‘G’day’.”
The Australians have this habit of shortening the longer words but McGrath is aghast to see the nicknames floating around.
“Every time you hear one of the English or Australian players interviewed, they use a nickname. Broady, Jimmy, Kez. I was asking the other day, ‘Who’s Kez?’ ‘Oh, Alex Carey.’ They’re a lot more familiar with each other than we were when I played.”
England are down 0-2 in the series but it did not show if the bashing by the hosts was causing any hurt. The England players were chatting around nicely with the home players.
“It’s all about body language. How much does it mean, representing your country? England have to go back to the drawing board and have a real good thought about this. With the IPL and the Big Bash, these players know one another well. You see batsmen and bowlers joking around. I’d like to see some emotion out in the middle.”
