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Milestone at Lord's

Afp, Sydney
Glenn McGrath is poised to join cricket's bowling greats with his 500th wicket during the opening Ashes Test against England.
The 35-year-old Australian paceman, with the metronomic line and length, goes into the Lord's Test on 499 and on the verge of becoming only one of four bowlers in Test cricket history to capture 500 wickets.
Only compatriot Shane Warne (583), Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan (532) and West Indian Courtney Walsh (519) have more Test wickets than McGrath.
"As a cricketer, there is no better place (than Lord's) to take a major milestone like 500 wickets," said McGrath, who has revelled in his two previous Ashes series in England with 68 wickets in 11 Tests.
The top-ranked Test bowler has spearheaded Australia's new-ball attack since his Test debut against New Zealand coming in for Merv Hughes in November 1993 and will make his 110th Test appearance at Lord's.
McGrath is not particularly fast nor can he be termed intimidating,
but the man they call 'Pigeon' is renowned for his miserly accuracy.
His career Test bowling average of 21.23 and an economy rate of 2.49 runs per over is only bettered by West Indian pace spearheads Curtly Ambrose (20.99) and Malcolm Marshall (20.95) among the pantheon of fast bowling greats.
Aligned with his disciplined line and length McGrath has made it his objective to target the best batsmen in the opposing team to undermine their confidence.
McGrath's all-time favourite batting 'bunny' was former England captain and opening batsman Michael Atherton, whom he dismissed 19 times.
In this Ashes series, McGrath is zeroing in on England's openers, Marcus Trescothick and Andrew Strauss, having had great success against them along with England skipper Michael Vaughan in the lead-up one-day matches.
Already McGrath has snared Trescothick's wicket four times in Tests.
"He still holds a spell over Marcus Trescothick and I am sure that Trescothick is aware of his shortcomings against this sort of bowling," former England captain and now television commentator
Bob Willis said recently.
This will be McGrath's third and last Ashes tour to England after he fought back from a careerthreatening ankle injury which forced him to have two operations in 2003.
"The ankle is great again. I had three spurs on the ankle. One of them was removed but if I had the other two taken off, I would have been out for too long," McGrath recalled.
"Before the operations I couldn't put my front foot down as well as I liked and I had been trying to get there for the previous two years."
Some will point to Adam Gilchrist as Australia's series trump card, with his whirlwind batting at number seven, but McGrath and leg-spin wizard Shane Warne are indispensable to the Australian attack.
"If you want to talk about the fundamental difference between Australia and England you've just got tolook at Warne and McGrath, with a thousand Test match wickets (between them), and then you go wherever you want to go," former Australian Test wicket-keeper Rodney Marsh said ahead of the series.
England beat Australia in the fifth FROM PAGE 12
Sydney Test of the 2002-03 series, when Warne and McGrath were injured. Australia lacked firepower against India's batsmen in 2003-04 at home with both bowlers out.
The obvious conclusion is that Australia are nowhere near the lethal force without McGrath and Warne in their bowling attack.
Another of McGrath's great batting rivals, West Indian Brian Lara has deep respect for the Aussie, who has snared his wicket 13 times in Tests.
"He's not someone who thrives on energy or the fact he needs to get the ball up to the 80s and 90s (miles per hour), he's more about consistency," Lara said earlier this year.
"He's going to hit the seam and get the ball to move around and it doesn't matter if he bowls in the 70s or 80s (miles per hour) you've got to be a thinking batsman to keep him out. Someone like that is always going to go on."
McGrath has no doubt about the outcome of the Ashes series.
"My prediction? 5-0," he said.