New South Wales speedster Copeland touted as the next McGrath

Sydney, Apr 17 (ANI): New South Wales bowler Trent Copeland, who played just five Sheffield Shield matches last season but managed to take more wickets than Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee, Stuart Clark and Doug Bollinger did in their debut seasons, is being compared with McGrath for his accurate bowling.

Copeland up to the under-19s was a wicketkeeper-batsman and only started bowling four years ago after he got tired of broken fingers.

He has taken 35 wickets at 17.57 to kick off his first-class career, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

"He is very similar to Glenn McGrath," Cricket NSW chief executive David Gilbert said.

"You hate to saddle a young guy with so much expectation but Trent's introduction to first-class has been truly extraordinary. He has got that really awkward in-between length like McGrath that the batsman doesn't know whether to come forward to or go back," he said.

And there is no doubt in Gilbert's mind that Copeland will be difficult to shift from the line-up by Bollinger, Clark and Nathan Bracken for the first Shield game of next season.

"Guys like McGrath and Lee and Clark had been in the under-17s and 19s, everyone knew about them, there is an aura and hype surrounding those people," Copeland said.

"I am not afraid to have that around me but other teams I suppose focused on other bowlers like Moises Henriques and Josh Hazlewood, they didn't know anything about me. They knew what these other guys were bringing to the table and could set plans around that," he said.

Copeland's 8-92 on debut against Queensland was the second best match return by any debutant in NSW's history. (ANI)