Michael Vaughan should be afraid, very afraid. Glenn McGrath has publicly targeted Vaughan for the upcoming Ashes series, and while much of McGrath's bluster is delivered playfully, history suggests he is deadly serious about his targets once the real business begins. Since conquering Mike Atherton and Brian Lara during his rise to greatness in the mid-to-late 1990s, McGrath has taken to signposting his chosen target in advance of a Test series. Like a playground bully flagging a beating long before it happens, McGrath gives batsmen the fear, and the tactic hardly ever fails.

"I don't mind a batsman knowing I am targeting him," McGrath said. "Often he ends up thinking about me. While this could mean that he will plan a counter-strategy to take me on, more often than not he begins to think too much about my game-plan and ends up getting out. I'm happy to come out and say these things - if the batsmen are good enough to see me off then good on them."

The formula goes something like this: praise the batsman; assert that it will be a good contest between you and him; dwell on the batsman's past failure - usually backed up by a statistic and/or a reference to a weakness against short-pitched bowling - then outline the consequences of the batsman failing this time.

In most sports, pre-match jousting is defined by a relative humility. But McGrath is the closest cricket has to the boxer who swaggers into the weigh-in and tells the world what damage he's going to do to his opponent. If you do that, you have to punch your weight, and McGrath has consistently done that. Here's what The Nemesis said in advance of his scalping his most recent victims:

Brian Lara, 2000-01
"As far as I'm concerned it's a bit more personal this summer due to the last time we came up against each other. He went to the match referee and reported me for spitting. What eventuated was I got fined ... and that bites at me a bit. You can rest assured I'll be getting stuck into him again with some short stuff throughout the summer."
Head-to-head series average: 67 runs at 22.33

Sourav Ganguly, 2000-01

"The guy I fancy my chances against is Ganguly. He is the one I plan to target and I am confident that I'll be successful against him. I have got him out quite a few times in the past, and I'm sure he remembers that. He is a little uncomfortable against short-pitched bowling, and I plan to test him with a lot of that stuff."
Head-to-head average: 10 runs at 5.00

Mike Atherton, 2001

"Athers is still the key wicket, that's the one I'm after. It would be nice to continue to get him out - I've got him 13 times so far and I'm looking forward to renewing our rivalry. If I can get on top of him early, it can affect the rest of the series."
Head-to-head average: 86 runs at 14.33

Gary Kirsten and Jacques Kallis, 2001-02

"He [Kirsten] is thought of in our team as a big player for them. If we can knock him over early it opens up the rest of their batting. I'll target him because I've had a bit of success against him in the past."
"Kallis didn't seem to handle the short-pitched stuff too well and he didn't look that comfortable, so you just never know tomorrow."
Head-to-head average: Kirsten 75 runs at 18.75
Head-to-head average: Kallis 66 runs at 22.00

Michael Vaughan, 2002-03

"He's obviously their form player if you look at the last season. But he hasn't really got the form on the board against Australia, so we'll see how he goes. I have only really come up against Vaughan in two matches. One was for Worcester and I bowled one ball to him there and he hit me up in the air and was caught. The other one I didn't get a chance to bowl to him because Jason [Gillespie] knocked him over for a duck. He hasn't had a lot of experience against Australia - and the few times he has he hasn't done too well. I like that pressure - it'll be interesting to see how he handles that pressure."

Rob Smyth is assistant editor of Wisden.com.

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