Ashes 2023: What does Mitch Marsh’s stunning third test performance mean for the rest of the series?

No one thought Mitch Marsh was going to be an Ashes hero. But his day one heroics have left Australian selectors with one massive question moving forward.

Mitch Marsh wasn’t supposed to be here.

Not playing an Ashes Test. Not rescuing his team with a run-a-ball 118. Not even in the country.

All those years worrying if Marsh was ever going to string it together were over. In Cameron Green, Australia had found a taller, broader, faster, harder-hitting West Australian all-rounder.

Marsh was yesterday’s man. He was often not fit enough to bowl four overs, how could Australia ever pick him for a Test?

Aaron Hardie and Will Sutherland were coming through in a hurry too.

Marsh looked consigned to being a short-form mainstay. This was his lot, and it was not a bad one. Without him Australia probably wouldn’t have won the 2021 Twenty20 World Cup.

So what was Marsh supposed to be doing this week? He was due to be in Texas, getting ready for the inaugural season of Major League Cricket, the latest addition to the T20 circuit of riches.

Forget wearing the baggy green, Marsh had been marked down to don the orange and green of the Seattle Orcas.

His signature with MLC was announced at the same time as those of Aaron Finch and Marcus Stoinis. It felt about right. These were the white-ball guys.

If anyone mentioned how this was going to clash with the Ashes, they didn’t mention it very loudly. It hardly seemed relevant.

But Marsh hadn’t given up on Test cricket. He worked back from summer ankle surgery with this series in mind.

Having missed the entire Big Bash League season, he’d played a Sheffield Shield match for Western Australia, his first in almost two years, and duly scored a ton.

Mitchell Marsh celebrates his day one century. Picture: Getty Images

And as it turned out, the Aussie selectors hadn’t given up on Marsh either. They knew Green was special; that he was capable of turning Tests with both bat and ball. That in two of his last three Tests before this squad was picked he’d taken a five-fer and made a century.

But they’d also had a glimpse of life without him across the three Tests after he had his finger busted by Anrich Nortje. Without an all-rounder, Australia didn’t win any of those matches.

And they knew the idea of six Tests in eight weeks on this tour would be a stretch.

Heading into this tour, much of the discussion fell around how Australia would rotate its pace attack across the six matches. But they also needed cover on other fronts. That much was underscored when Nathan Lyon went down with a calf injury.

The effects were two-fold. Firstly it bolted Todd Murphy into the frame for Headingley. And secondly it led to Green bowling more than he otherwise would have at Lord’s. Whether Green would have hurt his hamstring if not needed to step up in Lyon’s absence is impossible to know for sure, but the upshot was Australia making three changes for a potentially Ashes-clinching Test.

As fate would have it, Marsh was batting before lunch. Just holding the fort would have been a pass. Instead he seized back the advantage, pounding anything short of a length to make his first Test ton overseas. Oh and then remove Zak Crawley before stumps.

Marsh was also in the wickets later in the day. Picture: Getty Images

At one level it shouldn’t be a surprise. Against all other Test nations Marsh averages less than 21 with the bat and more than 46 with the ball. Against England he averages 52.7 with the bat and sub-24 with the ball. Forget Clark Kent to Superman, the Ashes somehow turns Marsh from Ronnie Irani into Garry Sobers.

The idea that dropping Mitch Marsh would be dropping the urn seems ridiculous, but Joe Root might have done exactly that when he let Marsh slip on 12.

It begs a few questions. What would have happened had Marsh not broken his hand punching a wall during a Shield game in October 2019, only a few weeks after he took a five-fer at The Oval?

How much of Marsh’s peak have we missed because Green was understandably given every chance to succeed?

And most pertinently, what are the selectors going to do if Green is fit for the fourth Test, with Marsh surely undroppable after this performance?

Originally published as Ashes 2023: What does Mitch Marsh’s stunning third test performance mean for the rest of the series?