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T20 World Cup 2024 – Care and fitness: Mitchell Marsh’s long road to captain Australia

Mitchell Marsh captaining Australia at the World Cup is equal parts inevitable and impossible, given his career.

The inevitable comes from his genealogy. He is the son of former Australian ODI captain and World Cup winning coach, Geoff Marsh. He grew up in the Australian dressing room of the 1990s alongside legendary captains Allan Border, Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh. He is one of the most gifted talents of his generation. He had captained Australia to victory in the U-19 World Cup in 2010 – a team that included current teammates Josh Hazlewood and Adam Zampa – and there were many wise judges within Australian cricket early in Marsh’s career who felt that the rise his work was about to end. it was a matter of time. He is a natural leader.

“He really cares about everybody,” Ashton Agar told ESPNcricinfo. “It’s not about trying to be everyone’s partner. It’s about caring about who they are, caring about their families, and that makes you feel good. You may not always remember what you said but whenever you talk to Mitch you feel comfortable. You’ve been heard, cared for, listened to and you’ll remember what you said to him. and he doesn’t judge his friends like he’s talking to a random person on the street and I think that’s a great quality to have.

Such is his popularity among his peers, he was appointed vice-captain of the Tests in 2018 when new coach Justin Langer held a vote of the inside players to find out who should be part of the renewed leadership team following the nadir in Cape Town.

The unlikely part is Mitch Marsh. This is the man who once said, “most Australians hate me”. A man who was booed by the MCG crowd during a Test match at home when he entered the bowl. A man who broke his hand punching a dressing room wall after being sent off as Western Australia captain has been ruled out of six weeks of cricket. A man who has been demoted as Test vice-captain and has rarely if ever felt assured of his place in the Australian team in any way over the past 13 years. He was even left out when Australia won the 2021 T20 World Cup, a tournament in which he was a finalist. He stepped down as captain of the Perth Scorchers a few days before the start of the 2020-21 BBL season because he did not think he could fully commit to the role required while also trying to fight his way back into the Australian team.

He is the same Mitch Marsh who seeks fun and silliness in every situation rather than carrying the serious and tough nature that should be the hallmark of an Australian captain.

As seen in the first season of The test documentary, in the inner sanctum of the Australian dressing room during a tense Ashes series in 2019, there was Marsh trying to make his teammates laugh by pretending to be a spinning DJ. He stopped whenever Langer entered the room, bearing the look of a guilty schoolboy trying to hide his actions from his teacher. There’s also much-watched footage elsewhere of Marsh turning an Australian gym session into a dance-off with Marcus Stoinis and Zampa to keep him and his pals giggling. In the latest documentary, charting last year’s tour of England in which Marsh made a remarkable century on his return at Headingley, he is again a good-humored centerpiece among other truth-tellers.

Managing Australia at the World Cup must be a tough job. Border, Waugh, Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke and Aaron Finch were serious, hard-nosed, ruthless competitors to their core. Marsh is not built like them, despite his pedigree. He is as competitive as those men, but he gets the best of him in a different way. There is a sensitive and community soul beneath what is now, as he admitted during his iconic Allan Border award speech, a soft exterior.

Even when he was playing cricket at the highest level, he was just catching it. So he had to face that and show great resilience, but in order not to break down he had to understand his emotions, and how to control them effectively.

Ashton Agar to Mitchell Marsh

“I get fat sometimes and I like beer,” Marsh said.

It was in that emotional speech that Marsh credited his current Test and ODI World Cup captain Pat Cummins, and his current coach Andrew McDonald, for believing in him and letting him be himself.

The relationship between Cummins and Marsh as two of Australia’s modern leaders is at the heart of how the current Australian team works.

The two share a friendship that dates back to their ODI debut together as youngsters in 2011. They spent time together during Cummins’ short spell at the Perth Scorchers when he struggled with a back injury. They sat on the bench together at the 2015 World Cup.

Those within the Australian team will tell you that they share similar values ​​in relation to cricket and life despite being slightly different characters. They play cricket for fun. It’s their job, and a well-paid one at that. They’re both incredibly good at it, but it doesn’t define them.

Cummins has lived by that mantra for a long time and it has played a big part in him. It took Marsh a long time to reach the same conclusion, but he is finally reaping the rewards.

Travis Head is another who has found a similar sweet spot in the modern world. They tried the tough, callous, our-way-or-the-street professionalism that Australian cricket was once built on, and it didn’t help them play their best cricket. The calm and relaxed farm cultivated by Cummins and McDonald helped Marsh and Head to prosper.

“I think those guys were comfortable in what they were doing, comfortable in the way they were performing on the field and they knew they had the full support of their teammates and coaches to go out and play their way,” Cummins told ESPNcricinfo. “I think you’ve seen those guys go to another level, maybe that’s part of what’s different.”

We’re all there when he needs us, he can lean on us anytime he needs help but it’s his plan so we’ll let him run it the way he sees fit and he’ll do a great job.

Pat Cummins

There would be a temptation to just wash it off and repeat Cummins’ ODI World Cup captaincy success in the 2024 T20 edition. But Cummins’ work as a Test captain in the three-format fast and all-rounder has made him an option for each campaign in the ODI format and an unlikely option in T20I cricket as he is often rested in bilateral series.

Australia needed to fill the leadership void left by Finch in the T20I side. Marsh is considered the team’s absolute leader at this point, although there is a feeling he could be a successful long-term captain as the white-ball squad changes beyond the upcoming World Cup.

He no longer holds the title of Test vice-captain, an honor that rests on the shoulders of Steven Smith and Head, but Marsh is regarded as a key adviser to Cummins even in long form. He was Cummins’ vice-captain in the ODI World Cup and supported him in the lead.

In the run-up to 2024, which began in South Africa last year, Marsh was the obvious and popular choice as long as he was free to enter.

“It was his journey to get to this point of leading the World Cup team and being the Allan Border medalist,” said Agar. “I think the mark of true leaders or great leaders is that they have a good sense of self. And Mitch has that now.

“That’s what he’s tried to cultivate as much as anything else. He’s trying to understand who he is so he can be really comfortable with that. And I think it’s because he’s been through a really tough time. People were just getting behind him for no reason. He just took it and I know he’s talked about it before. Even when he’s playing good cricket, he’s just fighting for it and show great strength, but in order not to break down, he had to understand his feelings, and how to manage them effectively, so now he does that effectively, so that his performance is very harmonious.

There is a feeling that Marsh will not reinvent the wheel at the World Cup. He also said that he hopes to create a calm and happy environment where the players will be able to play in their own way and express themselves as he did under Cummins. He has won three T20Is in charge in the last 12 months, including dropping one in eight matches, with the players cheering for his leadership. There is also no concern about the tactical challenges he may face in the high-pressure World Cup given the experience he will have around him.

“Mitch is going to shine,” Cummins said. “He’s a really experienced captain. He’s the captain of WA, the Scorchers and the Aussie team. He’s going to get a lot of support. Everyone in that team loves playing under him so he’s going to do a good job. We’re all there when he needs us. , he can lean on us whenever he needs help but it’s his plan so We’ll let him run it the way he sees fit and he’ll do a good job with it.”

Alex Malcolm is the editor of ESPNcricinfo


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