Mitch Marsh’s position in the Test side has become almost untenable.
The feelgood story of Australian cricket of the past 18 months, Marsh has become the all-rounder who is not contributing with the bat or the ball.
Marsh falls to Jasprit Bumrah.Credit: Getty Images
Marsh’s scores this series – 6, 47, 9, 5, 2, 4, 0 for an average of 10.43 – are those of a walking wicket, and he has offered little with the ball since the Perth Test.
The Australians attributed his light bowling load in Brisbane to the numerous rain delays keeping their frontline quicks fresh but as this match turned on the third day Marsh contributed just seven largely non-threatening overs out of 119.
It meant Pat Cummins, Scott Boland and Mitchell Starc, the latter showing signs of wear, shouldered a heavier load, sapping them of the zest needed to extract the zing from the MCG track.
Notably, India’s quicks, refreshed by two nights of sleep, had the energy to have the ball rearing to make life uncomfortable for Australia’s batters.
Marsh himself was undone by the extra bounce found by Jasprit Bumrah, India’s talisman who has bewitched the No.6 and most of Australia’s batters with his exotic and damaging pace bowling. In his last four innings, he has been dismissed by Bumrah three times in 28 balls for just five runs.
The credits Marsh built after his stunning return to Test side in the 2023 Ashes are close to being exhausted. The luck he enjoyed from butter-fingered fielders during his dream run has deserted him. His regression to the mean has been savage.
Not since the Christchurch Test in March, nearly 10 months ago, when he made 80 to revive a seemingly doomed chase, has Marsh been a carrier. He has been carried since.
A selection panel criticised for not having the gumption to make the hard decisions because they are supposedly too close to players now must make a call that could end the Test career of a popular team member. Emotions aside, it should be a straightforward one.
As important as Marsh is to dressing-room morale, an important intangible when patience is tested deep into a high-pressure series, his teammates know runs and wickets are the currencies that matter most. He is averaging 10.43 this series, and 18.86 from nine games in 2024. Pat Cummins has fared better.
If it is the end of his time in the baggy green, Marsh can be comforted by the significant contributions he has made in this most unlikely of Test stints. An Allan Border Medal, an award partially voted on by his peers, is recognition of the high regard in which he is held by his teammates.
All is not lost for Marsh – yet. A breakthrough or two in the push for a stirring Test victory on Monday could save him, but this would be against the recent trend.
Battling a persistent ankle injury and troubled by a tight back, Marsh’s pace has dipped below 120 km/h at times this series, well down from the high 130s he bowled as a youngster before his limbs felt the forces exerted by his hulking frame.
If Marsh, not a noted player against spin, is not in selectors’ plans for Sri Lanka, they may as well pull the pin now, instead of waiting for Cameron Green’s return in the middle of next year.
Marsh has bowled seven overs in the Test so far.Credit: AP
Former coach Justin Langer has publicly backed Marsh in for Sydney, but other former Test players spoken to by this masthead privately believe the end is nigh.
Selectors have a ready-made immediate option. Beau Webster, the logical like-for-like replacement, is averaging 51 with the bat across the past four Shield seasons and has 64 wickets at 37, bowling predominantly seam having previously been an off-spinner – a craft he still bowls occasionally.
A fifth bowler will likely be needed in Sydney to support an attack likely to be weary after another day in the field on Monday with only three days between games. Statistically, the SCG is the best batting track in the country in the past 10 years and the scene of six draws from its past 11 Tests.
Starc downplayed injury concerns over his back and ribs but conceded this series was becoming attritional.
“I’m not sure anyone really understands it unless they’ve had to do it,” Starc said on SEN.
