Mitch Marsh’s career resurgence continues with Boxing Day Test rescue mission

Mitch Marsh’s return certainly hasn’t gone under the radar.

Nothing he does can, really.

But once again it’s worth pausing to appreciate what he’s doing and what it means to Australian cricket.

The pariah booed by the MCG crowd in his last Boxing Day outing now returns with the sort of adoration usually reserved for cult heroes, but in his case it is spread across too wide a group for him to be considered anything other than an out-and-out fan favourite.

The perception of him as a nepo baby was always amusing (selector Rod Marsh was no relation), but having a former Test opener and coach for a dad gave people a stick to whack him with.

To be clear, he wasn’t wrong to be dropped any of the times he was — before this current stint, he was averaging 25 with the bat and 38 with the ball. His 32 Tests yielded just three 50s and two tons, both of which were crammed into the 2017/18 summer.

The weight of expectation and criticism got to him and he went into his shell.

Or should we say chrysalis? Because since he was called back in for the battling Cameron Green in the third Test of the Ashes, he’s unfurled like a brutish butterfly.

All chest and arms. Long levers and full-blooded drives. Matthew Hayden if he could bowl.

The run-a-ball 118 at Headingley was a bit of fun, but surely it wouldn’t last.

Five matches in, it has; the big West Australian is averaging almost 70 since his recall (not to mention his starring roles in T20 and ODI World Cup wins in the past two years).

Other than the century, Marsh has passed 50 four more times in this comeback, including on day three at the MCG, with his 96 against Pakistan echoing that Leeds ton in its restorative powers.

On that day he defied Mark Wood and the rest of England’s rampaging attack to take Australia from 4-85 to 5-240 by the time he finally fell.

Against Pakistan, he strode out to face a hat-trick ball with his team 4-16, leading by just 70, with Mir Hamza and Shaheen Shah Afridi swinging it around corners and through gates.

Hat-trick ball negotiated, he immediately went to work.

Despite the game situation, he tried to hit rather than leave wide balls. And rather than stagnate and survive, he switched the script.

He arrived at the crease an over after Steve Smith but by the time his batting partner’s first boundary took him to 32, Marsh had clattered nine fours for twice the runs plus one.

Let’s not pretend he didn’t have help, with Abdullah Shafique dropping a first-slip sitter when he was on 20, but his approach was exactly the same before and after that.

In fact, the next ball was belted down the ground for four, once again thanks to farcical fielding.

Marsh also rescued himself twice with reviews in the first innings, one of which was a lucky, almost imperceptible, inside edge to save him from an LBW call.

You can imagine a pre-Leeds Marsh getting down on himself, dropping his head and believing the critics that maybe he didn’t deserve to be out there.

This Marsh got on with it.

He’d been kicked around enough by others over the years; no need to self-flagellate.

It’s a testament to players being given the freedom to play the way they want to play, which Pat Cummins has admittedly carried on from ousted leaders Tim Paine and Justin Langer, but also to players being more at peace with themselves.

Usman Khawaja and Travis Head have both had similar late-career joy.

Khawaja and Head probably both thought their chances of a Test career were slim to none at various times.

Head was tagged as a limited-overs specialist before finally getting a chance thanks to the sandpaper bans. Khawaja was dropped during the 2019 Ashes series and looked on the outs until Sheffield Shield form made him a must-pick.

Mitch’s brother Shaun had a similar Shield resurgence in 2020/21. With Test hopes gone, it’s easier to just play cricket.