Dennis Lille hands over mantle to Glenn McGrath

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A purposeful association that helped Indian cricket unearth and nurture many fast medium bowlers came to a halt.

Pace Guru Dennis Lillee, after serving the MRF Pace foundation as its director for 25 years has decided to make way for fellow Aussie Glenn McGrath (as first reported in Deccan Chronicle on July 16, 2012).

The pace school, a vision of the late Ravi Mammen, was the first of its kind and one that served fast bowlers the world over.

“When I spoke to Ravi many years ago I had my doubts about the success of the foundation and only wanted to give it a few years. It was the extraordinary support extended by MRF that made this journey possible,” said Lillee.

For Glenn McGrath the assignment will be a huge challenge, especially because he comes in with no relative coaching experience.

“The team at MRF is fabulous and I am sure I will be able to give something back to the game. My strength as a bowler was discipline, good attitude and mental strength. I will try and pass that along to the youngsters at the foundation, explained McGrath.

Lillee admitted that the start (1987) was anything but rosy. “I will have to be honest here and say there was absolutely no infrastructure and barring Kapil Dev there was no big name to fall back on either.

Training in gymnasiums were unheard of and it took a lot of effort from MRF to create the facilities. We only had videos then, there were no computer analysis. It was a huge task to get things going,” noted Lillee.

McGrath who paid rich tributes to Zaheer Khan for leading the Indian attack by example said: “The Indian sub-continent is the toughest for any fast bowler and I will try to impart what I learned by bowling in these conditions.

There is plenty of talent in India as they showed by winning the junior World Cup. No country shares the same passion as India and I am eagerly looking forward to this. To be the No. 1 team in the world you need to have quality pacers.”

The audio visual presentation captured the journey of the foundation neatly.

Lillee took time to thank everyone involved with the project and made special mention of former coach TA Sekar who served the school for nearly two decades.