Mitch Marsh should play second Test but Australia may need to lower expectations for all-rounders
AUSTRALIA all-rounder Mitch Marsh will hold his position for the Hobart Test and that’s not a bad thing despite the suspicion his heavy-handed game is not suited to Test cricket.
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AUSTRALIA has been searching for a champion Test all-rounder for 50 years and is now wondering whether such a player will ever be seen again.
Mitchell Marsh retreated from the WACA a shattered man, LBW to a ball which might have just clipped leg stump.
He fought hard for 26 and there was the vague whiff of a player starting to improve — but a good straight ball is always a chance of sneaking through his heavily set defence.
Again he leaves us with a question mark rather than an exclamation mark and so the search goes on.
Marsh will hold his position for the Hobart Test and that’s not a bad thing.
The suspicion is his heavy-handed game is not suited to Test cricket but much has been invested in him and he is worth one more look.
A good team could carry him but this one needs all hands on deck and everyone paddling for dear life.
Australia have their own coaches but it’s a shame they can’t link him up with the master of soft-handed batting, Barry Richards, who has his own methods of teaching players how rotate the strike.
If a Test batsman has four gears most runs are scored in second and third — the ones Marsh has most trouble with.
He has scored more sixes (11) in 19 Tests than Hashim Amla (9) has made in 95 but brutality alone never gets you far as a Test batsman.
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Marsh was not Australia’s worst performer but the ball and chain he carries is his Test batting average of 23.18 which, if it was a takeaway food order, would be nothing more than a chicken nugget.
His record after 19 Tests may be similar to Steve Waugh’s — both had 29 wickets and Waugh averaged only five runs more as a batsman — but the sharp improvement Waugh showed soon after this may simply be beyond Marsh.
Of the types of players that make up a cricket side the one which Australia has most trouble finding is the gold-plated all-rounder.
If you discount keepers such as Adam Gilchrist, debonair Keith Miller, champion of the 1940s and 50s, is the man by which all others are measured — and found wanting.
Richie Benaud and Alan Davidson did great work for Australia in the 60s and Shane Watson peaked with two Allan Border Medals without quite being the player Australia wanted him to be.
But generally it’s been slim pickings.
Maybe expectations are too high.
Maybe if a batsman can average, say 30 with the bat and 35 per wicket with the ball we should all be happy.
Originally published as Mitch Marsh should play second Test but Australia may need to lower expectations for all-rounders
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