Fans incredulous as door opens for Marsh
heavy dressing room nerves – in Australia’s Test team to play England at the Gabba from Thursday.
Cam Bancroft has elbowed his way in at opener and Matt Renshaw sacked, but Australia might be well served to ventilate Marsh’s nerves by sending him out to open and shifting Bancroft down the order.
The strange thing about the vitriol Marsh attracts is he has one of the least polarising personalities you could imagine, a quietly spoken, almost introverted character and one of the game’s least offensive men.
On or off the field he is not a feather ruffler and there was a famous case early in his career when he was wrongly given out but he seemed too bashful to refer it to umpires (in this way he is different to Watson).
He cops more than he deserves but, much like Watson, fans feel exasperation over his stop-start career, in which a leg muscle strain or a form wobble never seem far away.
As the left hander prepares for his eighth start in Test cricket some fans sigh. Others get angry. Some, like his state coach Justin Langer, get excited by his potential – strange because Marsh made his first class debut in 2000-01.
Marsh is Australia’s barometer batsman.
When he is overlooked these days it means young talent is on the rise. When he plays it means that talent has failed and it’s back to the future time. His selection or omission is a statement on the health of Australian cricket.
If Australia’s young batsmen were firing Marsh – at age 34, without a Cricket Australia contract and only a year younger than out-to-pasture Ed Cowan – would not have been playing in Brisbane.
The madness of the Ashes will be a challenge for such a shy personality and the temptation is to say it will be his last big challenge.
But with Shaun Marsh, you never know.