Current Australian Pacers Are Good Enough To Surpass Dennis Lillee, Feels Former Australian Legend

It is surprising that two amongst the top three wicket-takers in Test cricket for Australia are spinners, as Glenn McGrath with 563 wickets is sandwiched between Shane Warne and Nathan Lyon with 708 and 390 wickets, respectively.

Dennis Lillee, regarded as the greatest pacer from Australia, sits at the fourth spot with 355 wickets. Those other greats like Brett Lee, Jason Gillespie, and Mitchell Johnson couldn’t go past Lillee is also surprising.

Former fast bowler, Craig McDermott, who picked 291 scalps, believes that the current crop of the Australian pace bowling – Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, and Josh Hazlewood – are good enough to surpass Lillee, provided that their bodies hold up.

“They’re all good enough to pass DK Lillee, there’s no doubt about that. That’s quite possible, it just depends on their bodies,” said Craig McDermott.

Cummins will end with more wickets than his Australian teammates – Merv Hughes

Mitchell Starc, 31 soon, has 244 wickets- more than Cummins and Hazlewood, but the other two are younger and fitter than the left-arm seamer. Hazlewood, 29, has gathered 195 wickets and if often compared with the attributes of Glenn McGrath. Cummins,27, is the youngest of the three and has 143 batsmen in his kitty. Along with being the number 1 ranked ICC Test bowler, the pacer is also Australia’s Test vice-captain.

Another former fast bowler, Merv Hughes believes that Cummins will take more wickets than Starc and Hazlewood by the end of their career because he is young and fitter than the other two.

“I’ll go with Cummins because he’s the youngest and he’ll play for the longest. It’s just going to be a toss of the coin. Like I said, Cummins is younger, they’re around the mark at the time. Starc has a few more [wickets] but played more cricket than the other two at Test level,” said Hughes.

The trio along with James Pattinson and Peter Siddle helped Australia regain the Ashes in England for the first time in 18 years. The trio will be in action soon when they take on the Indian batsmen for a four-match Test series starting 17th December in Adelaide with the pink-ball. They would like to revenge on Virat Kohli’s side for their home series defeat a couple of years ago.

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