kuala lumpur, september 17: Rain interruptions are supposed to be the best time to brood over troubles. Yesterday Rahul Dravid, fresh after facing a fiery Glenn McGrath, thought of his biggest problems area — the young pacers’ inconsistency in line and length — during the two-hour break.

On the way out, when play resumed, he suggested to RP Singh, S Sreesanth, Irfan Pathan and Munaf Patel to have a close look at the Aussie great.

Patel parked himself just outside the boundary line to get a ringside view of the legend but soon he realised that someone, with far closer proximity to McGrath, had already imbibed the same lesson that he aspired to learn.

That’s the advantage the 24-year-old Mitchell Johnson and the other Aussie pacers have after the ‘McGrath master class’ that they regularly attend at nets and during games. And that has been a major reason for their stand-out show in this congress of Generation Next pacer at Kuala Lumpur.

If one takes out pacers like Ajit Agarkar and Brett Lee from the equation, the total ODI aggregate of the all the young quicks from India, Australia and the West Indies put together can’t match the experiece of Glenn McGrath. If his ODI count (261 matches) is the highest, his economy rate here has been the best at 3.33 — despite the fact that this has been a tournament of blazing starts.

That’s all because of that famous instantaneous “in-the-team-and-on-the-coin” control that Australian captain for tomorrow’s game Mark Hussey refers to as “always on the 20 cents’’. And from his position at mid-on he is constantly passing on tips to the next generation Aussie pacers and at every given opportunity they have acknowledged McGrath’s vital inputs.

Mitchell says that it is an honour to talk to McGrath during a spell while Watson can’t forget how he was asked to change length when the West Indian openers were going for big hits even as Stuart Clark mentions about the highly informative bowling meeting and the training sessions.

For the other two teams in the tournament, expert advice to young pacers is lacking as they struggle to land in the right areas. Brian Lara says, “The likes of Taylor, Edwards and even Bradshaw need to get the ball at the right areas. And that’s what we’ve been practising at the nets. The most important area is that we have been very inconsistent in the match.’’

Dravid too has stressed how at times they are not able to execute their plans since the pacers have lacked the consistency to pitch in the right area. Ask vice-captain Ramnaresh Sarwan the reason behind the success of Aussies pacers as compared to the struggle of those from India and the West Indies. “Australia have been playing a lot of first class cricket. They are definitely well trained than pacers from India and the West Indies,’’ he says.

One gets to know about this “better trained’’ aspect as Johnson gives out the secret behind his swing the other evening. “Working with bowling coach Troy Cooley has really helped. My fingers are now more behind the ball and the swing is prominent,’’ he says.

The bowlers from India and the West Indies don’t have the luxury of a bowling coach or a stalwart around them. And that’s the reason Munaf needs to get “distance education” from McGrath while just a few days ago young Jamaican pacers Jermaine Lawson and Andrew Richardson travelled to Chennai to train under Dennis Lillee.