Marshall looks to be finishing with a flourish
Glamorgan 220 & 232 lost to Gloucestershire 363 & 92-0 by 10 wickets
THE clock is running down on Hamish Marshall’s time as a professional cricketer.
He has made the decision to return home to New Zealand to take up a job working in insurance with his older brother and this season will be his last. He is signing off with a fine run of form that has seen him make a hundred in his last two innings.
The most recent of these centuries was the 101 he made against Glamorgan in Cardiff that helped Gloucestershire to a first innings lead of 143 over the hosts. Marshall says he is delighted to be ending his decade-long association with the county with an uptick in his run-making.
“It was a rough patch for a few games so when you do find a bit of form it is always nice to bang them out and continue doing that. It was a good wicket today and I had good support from George Hankins who played really well I thought,” Marshall said. “I have always enjoyed playing in Cardiff and against Glamorgan, they are a good bunch of lads. But it is nice to get a few runs against them.”
Marshall has been an outstanding servant for Gloucestershire since he signed as overseas player in 2006. He now has over 9,000 runs and 22 hundreds for the club and is on course to make 1,000 first-class runs in a season for them for the third time.
At the beginning of the second day Gloucestershire were in trouble at 68-3, it was Marshall’s runs that held together an innings that could well have fallen apart. This young Gloucestershire squad will have to work very hard to replace the experience and stability that Marshall has long given to their middle order.
“To give their bowlers credit they bowled really well up front, there was a bit of swing and they are experienced bowlers,” Marshall said.“We know that Michael Hogan and Graham Wagg have bowled a fair bit in their careers and we weren’t expecting anything different.
“You just have to weather that for a bit and when you are getting bowlers into their third and fourth spells as we did at the end of our innings it gets a bit tougher for them. They just coming at us and I think we batted pretty well and at quite a good tempo.”
Following what turned out to be a comfortable win here thanks to David Payne’s 4-45, both Marshall and Gloucestershire will be hoping that they can push on for positive results in the matches to come. It would be a fitting end for Marshall who says that he could not turn down the chance to start his post cricket career when this opportunity to work with his brother presented itself.
“It is a job opportunity outside of cricket that at my age, I will be 38 come next county season, and I have an opportunity with a young family to look at life after cricket. I still enjoy the game and love it but you have to think about the rest of your life.”
When asked if he is going to miss the club that has been his employer for the last 10 years he said he would, but the biggest loss will be the company of his teammates. “I’ve been here a long time, but I think I will be able to hold it together. I am not an overly emotional lad so I think it will be alright.They are a good bunch of guys and I think I will miss the lads the most.”