Cricketer. Larrikin. Lifesaver: The redemption of Mitch Marsh
Australia’s T20 captain was once derailed by crippling fear – ‘all I really did was fail and let everyone down’ - until the moment he asked himself a simple question.
This is how Mitch Marsh saved a life. He met a bloke called Tommy Herschell. Tommy’s this fantastically raw, wild-eyed, big-hearted, straight-talking, caring, compassionate soul who runs an organisation called Find Ya Feet. Helping young fellas who need it.
Mitch was surfing at Nihi Resort in Sumba, Indonesia, when this raw, wild-eyed, big-hearted, straight-talking, caring, compassionate stranger called Tommy just paddled straight up to him and said G’day. “He’s talking a million miles an hour and I’m thinking, ‘Oh, mate, you’re a ripper. I say, ‘Mate, what do you do with yourself?’ He tells me about Find Ya Feet. He says he wants to give boys and girls the tools to deal with mental health battles. I’ve never had actual depression but I’ve definitely felt anxiety and pressure through cricket. I’m passionate about that side of life. It just really struck a chord with me and I said, ‘Mate, if there’s ever anything I can do, just let me know. I’d love to help.’”
Tommy roars with laughter when recalling that first conversation with Mitch Marsh, international cricketer and new captain of Australia’s T20 team. Because Tommy had stuffed it up. He thought Rod Marsh, the late and great Australian cricketer, was Mitch’s father. In fact, Mitch’s dad, Geoff, and his brother, Shaun, were Test cricketers. His sister, Melissa, was a professional basketballer. There’s two famous Marsh families in WA, but they’re unrelated. Which was news to Tommy. “I’m like, ‘Hello mate!’” he recalls. “And Mitcho is like, ‘Hello mate! How are ya?’ That’s how we started talking. Mitcho seemed pretty interested in Find Ya Feet. I told him it’s there for anyone going through big life events. Then I make a goose of myself. I say, ‘Like the one you’ve just been through.’ He looked at me all weird and said, ‘What have I just been through?’ And I said, ‘You know, mate. Rod died. You lost your dad. That’s pretty heavy, mate.’ He said, ‘Rod wasn’t my dad! I never even met him!’ I said I was sorry for getting it wrong. In my head I’m thinking, ‘You definitely met him.’”
Anyway, Mitch and Tommy became great mates. Says Mitch: “Tommy’s one of the most genuine, humble, inspiring humans I’ve ever met. He’s saving lives. That’s heroic.” Says Tommy: “From that day on, Mitch has never failed to wow me as a mate. I’m telling you, he’s a beautiful human.”
Mate, if there’s ever anything I can do, just let me know. I’d love to help.Mitch is in England for last year’s World Test Championship and Ashes tours. He’s about to be needed. “A young bloke rings me on a Friday afternoon,” Tommy says. “He’s 14. He’s like, ‘Tommy, I’m exhausted. I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry. I don’t want to be here. I can’t do it anymore.’ He’s a mad-keen cricketer, this kid. At about ten o’clock that night, Mitch sends me a text. ‘How are ya, mate?’ He’s just checking in. Like he always does. I think bugger it, I’ll just ring him. I tell him about the young fella and straight away Mitcho goes, ‘Give me his number.’”
Ten minutes later, Mitcho has started a WhatsApp group. Three members. Mitcho, Tommy and the young fella. Another ten minutes later, Mitcho posts a video. It’s beautiful. Sincere. A tear-jerker. It’s for the young fella and it goes like this.
“Mate, it’s Mitch Marsh here from the Australian cricket team. Our good mate, Tommy Herschell, has reached out to me to send you a little video, mate. I hear you’ve been doing it pretty tough of late and I just wanted to send you a message to say that for you to have the courage to speak up and say that things aren’t going well, you’re stronger than a lot of men out there, mate. It’s bloody good to see. I’m really happy that you’ve gone and done this. Through cricket, I’ve been through plenty of ups and downs and the thing that changed my life was being open about it, talking about my emotions and accepting it’s not always going to be easy, mate. I just wanted to reach out and say g’day and I’m always here for a chat if you need.”
Mitch holds up a yellow Australian team training singlet. “I’ll sign it for you and send it across to you,” he says. “On the basis that you keep talking to people, mate. Keep talking about your emotions and just understand that sometimes it’s OK to not be OK. We’re here for you. Cheers, buddy.”
It’s one thing for a busy Australian cricketer to send a video to a young fella in need. Good luck, get ’em. It’s another thing for Mitch to contact him virtually every day of the two-month tour. To make sure he’s going OK. Finding his feet. That is how you save a life.
Mitch saved his Test career by asking himself a simple question. Who am I? “When you find the answer to that, it’s life-changing,” he says.
Here’s the back story. Mitch made his Test debut in 2014. Two days after his 23rd birthday. He was a strapping young all-rounder who bowled swiftly and could club a ball from Perth halfway to Margaret River. The world was at his feet – but he became a chronic underperformer. The most mocked, criticised and pilloried bloke in Australian cricket.
“The negativity got to me,” he says. “I don’t hide behind the fact I’m a sensitive person. I like to make people happy. One of the ways I thought I could do that was through playing cricket for Australia and doing well. But I wasn’t doing well. I struggled when I first came into the team as a relatively young kid, learning my craft at the highest level, and at the same time growing up as a human and learning about myself as a person. Anyone who had an opinion of me, it just always seemed to be a bad one. It built up. I really battled with it because of my personality and the type of person I am. I took it all to heart and to be honest with you, I thought I was done and dusted.”
In the 2018 Boxing Day Test at the MCG, Mitch came on to bowl … and was booed. “Pretty much the lowest day of my career,” he says in the third season of the Amazon documentary series The Test, to be released on May 24. “The last 15 Tests I played, I just failed a heap. I just kept on failing, failing, failing.
“When I was younger, if cricket was going well, then I was going well as a person. If cricket wasn’t going well, I was down in the dumps,” he explains. Then he made the Australian team – and started copping all this criticism. “That was a bit of a rollercoaster,” he says. “Just walking down the street and getting sprayed for being shit, pretty much.”
He says of his thinking in those dog days: “Most of Australia hates me. Australians are passionate. They love their cricket. They want people to do well … I love playing for Australia, I love wearing the baggy green cap. I’ll keep trying and hopefully I’ll win them over one day.”
He was sacked the following year. Told his brother Shaun, “I’m done.” To which Shaun replied, “Shut up, mate. You’re not done.” (The brothers are close: there’s a touching scene in the documentary where they’re on a boat together at Rottnest Island, and Shaun looks at Mitch and says, “I know he’s my brother, but I don’t think I’ve met a better person in my life. I absolutely love him.”)
Mitch spent four years in the Test wilderness but if nothing else, he kept trying. Kept slogging away. And then came one more chance. It was in last year’s Ashes series in England. His comeback innings at Headingley was a soul-stirring, defiant, aggressive, career-changing 118. He won everyone over with that Ashes innings. “I thought, ‘Yeah, baby. I’m back,’” he says in The Test.
“Probably the biggest thing I’m proud of is that I always continued to try. I feel like a lot of people give up way too easily. Keep trying. People say to me, ‘What changed?’ Really, I just didn’t give up.”
Now he tells The Weekend Australian Magazine of a conversation the cameras missed. It was with his great mate and Test captain, Pat Cummins, right before his thunderous comeback. “Mitchy,” Cummins grins in The Test. “Yeah, I love Mitchy.”
Mitch says of their quick deep-and-meaningful: “Patty and I went on our first Australian tour together when he was 17 and I was 19. That’s 13 years of history. These days it’s more than being teammates for Australia. He’s one of my best mates in life. I feel like with people who are as high-profile as Patty, what you see isn’t always what you get, but with Patty it is. He’s very authentic. He’s extremely humble. He has a great appreciation for what we’re lucky enough to do as Australian cricketers. He just really bloody enjoys it. This one conversation we had at Headingley, I won’t forget it for as long as I live.”
Go on. “It’s my first Test innings in a long time,” Mitch says. “I’m nervous. I don’t want to let anyone down. I love these boys and want to contribute. Patty comes up to me and looks me in the eye and he just goes, ‘Mate, if you want to hit your first ball for six, go for it. I want you to do it.’ He wasn’t really saying to go out and hit a six, of course.”
What was he saying? “He was saying, ‘You’re free to be yourself. I want you to play how you like to play. I want you to know that’s OK.’ Right in that moment, I promise you, I thought, ‘I can actually do this.’ My captain and a mate was on my side. He understood me. I’m not going to blitz it every time and everyone accepts that. That was all I needed. I could go and bat the way I wanted to bat. It wasn’t about hitting sixes. It was about, ‘I trust you, mate.’ Honestly, I’ll never forget it.”
Why? “Because I used to be someone stuck in my fear of failure,” Mitch says. “That definitely got the better of me at certain stages in my younger years. There’s no doubt it crippled me. It showed in my performances. When I was out of the side for all those years, I told myself, ‘Well, if I ever get another crack, I’m going to play my way. I’m not going to die wondering. I’ll go big or I’ll go home.’ You know the stuff. For four years I was telling myself, ‘If I get just one more chance, I’ll do it the way I’ve always wanted to.’”
Which is? “By not being scared,” he says. “By backing myself. Coming through the junior ranks and in all my early cricket for Western Australia, I was a super-attacking player. I took a game on. Played aggressively. I’d stopped doing that because I was so bloody scared of failing and letting everyone down. It was just defend, defend, defend, and then all I really did was fail and let everyone down. It was frustrating because I hadn’t been myself. The way I was playing, it wasn’t who I knew I could be.”
Five years after the humiliation of being booed at the MCG, Mitch was back in the Australian XI for last summer’s Boxing Day Test. Your mate and Test captain can talk you up until the cows come home. You still have to find the right self-talk in your moments of truth. When it’s just you. Just your voice. When you’re walking out to bat and Australia is in ruins at 4-16. “When you’re shitting yourself,” Mitch laughs.
He reckons this was the day he found his feet. “I had this crazy little moment with myself at the MCG,” he says. “I was taking my first few steps onto the MCG turf, and we were 4-16, and the team needed me. I started mumbling to myself, ‘Who am I?’ I think that’s a pretty bloody great question to ask yourself. Who am I? It doesn’t matter what you’re doing in life. When push comes to shove, who are you? Under a bit of pressure, what sort of cricketer and human did I want to be? Instead of thinking ‘Shit, we’re 4-16, defend, defend, defend,’ everything was about staying true to my pre-ball routines: focus on my self-talk, focus on my breathing and get stuck into it. I just thought, ‘Right, let’s go. All I ever wanted was another crack. I’m getting another crack.’ Pardon the language, but I grabbed the kahunas and went for it. That walk to the crease was such a significant moment. That talk with myself.”
Mitch didn’t die wondering. Went big. Attacked, attacked, attacked. Clubbed 96 runs off 130 balls. Australia got home by 79 runs. “It’s an innings I’ll always be really proud of,” he says. “Because I used to almost feel bad for feeling nervous and unsure of myself. I think it’s natural in any pressure situation, as a human being, to think negatively. But all the work I’d done on trusting myself and accepting myself and backing myself – everything I wanted to be as an Australian cricketer – it all came good on that day. You learn that it’s OK to be nervous, scared. What an opportunity it is to challenge yourself. Who am I? What am I made of? I just wanted to find out.”
The rise and fall and rise and rise and rise of Mitch Marsh has become one of the better stories in Australian sport. He was instrumental in Australia retaining the Ashes and winning the World Cup last year. He’s received the honour of captaincy of the Australian team for this year’s T20 World Cup.
“Jeez, it’s been fun,” he said before the Allan Border Medal night in Melbourne in January. “I couldn’t have dreamt, in my absolutely wildest dreams, it would turn out like this.”
He made the speech of the year at the AB Medal night. A speech that made headlines, broke the internet, melted hearts. It was a self-deprecating, emotional, endearing discourse in which he admitted he could be a bit fat at times, and he loves a beer, but there was so much more to it than that. Mitch was really talking about the power of people believing in you.
“I had four beers at lunch,” he says. “Then I started to get an inkling that I was going to be reasonably close for the AB Medal. I was told I was in the votes. No one told me I’d won it, but they said to be prepared in case you do. I stopped on the beers. It was all good. I had a few nervous champagnes when we got to the ceremony but I kept a lid on it pretty well.”
The AB Medal night is Australian cricket’s night of nights. Penguin suits and cocktail dresses. The award goes to Australia’s finest cricketer of the year. The top three was announced: Cummins, Steve Smith and Mitch. “That’s when I thought, ‘Wow. I’m actually a chance here,’” he says. “I never thought someone like me could win an award like that.”
And the winner is … Mitch Marsh. Cummins broke into a Luna Park grin. He looked more stoked than anyone in the room. Mitchy? Yeah, he loves Mitchy.
Mitch puckered up and kissed his greatest love, his adoring wife Greta. They married at Gracetown in April 2023 before settling in Perth’s Cottesloe. Mitch then grabbed the microphone and cracked a few jokes before saying what he really wanted to say to Cummins and Australian coach Andrew “Ronnie” McDonald. “You believed in me,” he said, fighting back tears. “And I just can’t thank you enough for believing in me. I’m a bit fat at times and I love a beer …” [laughter] “but you see the best in me. Always.”
The speech went down a treat. Next day, blokes shook his hand on the street in Melbourne. “Jeez, that speech,” he grins. “It got away from me a bit. I got a bit emotional but I’m glad. I think it’s great for men to show what we’re feeling. I’ll never shy away from that. Patty and Ronnie have basically changed my life and I just wanted them to know. They have such a good read on me as a human being before the cricketer. That’s invaluable. When people back you, when they support you, when they understand you, it’s incredibly uplifting.”
The young fella in Sydney is going gangbusters. Finding his feet. He was at Headingley for Mitch’s comeback hundred. He was in Perth for last summer’s Test, when Mitch handed over the yellow training singlet from the video. The young bloke had met all conditions of delivery. He’d kept talking about his troubles. Kept contributing to the WhatsApp chat group. Who is he? He’s an engaging, intelligent, handsome young bloke showing potential as a junior cricketer. He has everything to live for. And he has Mitch Marsh as a mate.
“The young bloke’s on his way,” Mitch says. “I gave him the jersey and that was a bloody special moment. He’s an absolute ripper. We chat often. We always will. I guess it’s just a really small example of how easy it is to help. And how easy it can be to get help. It’s not just a lesson for young people. These issues don’t discriminate. It’s a cool story because I think it shows how powerful it can be when you talk openly and honestly about anything you’re going through. One little conversation can be powerful enough to change someone else’s life. And it can change your own.”
The Test season three launches on Prime Video on May 24. The ICC T20 World Cup to be held in the West Indies and US runs June 2 - 30 and will also be streamed on Amazon Prime Video.
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