Dubai: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has launched a serious bid to unearth pace bowlers in India when it signed up a historic five-year deal with the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai. Glenn McGrath, the legendary Australian paceman who took charge of the academy from Dennis Lillee few years back, is the director of the academy.

“It has been a wonderful couple of years for me at the MRF Pace Foundation. I now eagerly look forward to working with India’s best at the foundation. Our facilities compare favourably with the best in the world and I am eagerly looking forward to this challenge,” McGrath said in a press release.

One of the pioneers in the field of sports academies in India, the foundation was formed in 1987 and acted as a breeding ground of some of the accomplished pace bowlers over at least three generations — from the likes of Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad to the Varun Aarons and Ishwar Pandeys.

Under the agreement, the BCCI will send current and up and coming pace bowlers to the academy to train under McGrath and they will be split in two categories: Elite and Probables.

Speaking on the occasion, K.M. Mammen, Chairman and Managing Director of MRF Limited, said: “For the last 27 years, the MRF Pace Foundation has worked with a single-minded focus of producing pace bowlers for India. Everything we have done at the Pace Foundation, in terms of the tie-ups we have entered into, the infrastructure we have invested in, the staff we have trained, has been planned with this single objective in mind.

“We are extremely proud of what we have achieved so far. Altogether 17 of our trainees have played for the country, taking over 2,000 international wickets. Today, we are proud to announce the official partnership between the BCCI and MRF Pace Foundation to train pace bowlers for India. This new agreement will help us work together even more effectively to produce great results.”

The ‘Elite’ category includes all those pace bowlers who have been selected by the BCCI to play official matches at different levels. There will a maximum of 10 trainees per camp and the duration of the same will be two weeks. The selected pace bowlers can attend the camp during all three visits of McGrath in a year and the first of such training camp got under way on Monday.

This ‘Probables’ category will include upcoming pace bowlers as identified and shortlisted by the national selectors. There will be a total of 20 probables, all of whom will undergo training for a period of 30 days. These 20 trainees will be split into two groups (10 each) and attend the camp

in May-June and July-August.