Mitchell Marsh is going through a purple catch as far as his Australia career is concerned. After making a successful return to Test cricket during Ashes 2023, he has been named Australia captain for the upcoming T20I series against South Africa.
Last year, he had dismissed suggestions of being in the race to lead Australia in ODIs after the retirement of Aaron Finch. However, he’s now going to succeed Finch into the role albeit in T20Is.
“It’s pretty crazy how it all works out,” Marsh told SEN radio. “Very proud moment. Probably not something I’d ever thought I would do, but really looking forward to the opportunity of going to South Africa.”
Marsh admits his own fault has adversely impacted his career but he has learned to enjoy the every phase of his life.
“Guess I’m very proud that I’ve stuck at it, and been through a little bit of adversity through my career – through my own fault, mind you – but nice to be recognised in our group as a leader. Think anyone who works hard and is driven to succeed in whatever field they are in, and they come up short, it can be bloody hard to be honest with you, and I’m really proud of the fact I’ve never really given up,” Marsh said.
“I’ve also (been) through those lessons learnt to enjoy every part of my life – the ups and downs – and try to take a lot of learnings from my failures, and understand that whatever you do in life – whether it’s cricket, sport, business – you are going to fail, and it’s (about) how you deal with those failures. Hopefully that will help me with my leadership, and trying to win a few games for Australia,” he added.
Marsh thinks captaining in T20s is the toughest job considering how quickly a match can swing.
“It’s certainly the hardest (format). I’ve gave up captaining the (Perth) Scorchers… that was mainly around (when) I was really striving to play for Australia, and I didn’t feel like I could give it everything. It’s really hard to balance that. You’ve got to put a lot of time into getting things right tactically, but I’m really looking forward to the challenge and will have plenty of good people around me to help. I’ll lean on others, which has been a really important learning for me as a leader,” Marsh said.
Marsh’s career has been impacted heavily by injuries and the challenge now is to keep fit for longer periods.
“I’ll have to keep looking after myself and keep working with the great staff at Cricket Australia and the WACA, and make sure I can stay on the park as much as I can,” he said.
Marsh says he has realised his game in Test cricket is more of an attacking batter and he cannot drop anchor like is other teammates.
“I probably spent a fair chunk of my red-ball career trying to bat like Steven Smith, Marnus (Labuschagne), Usman Khawaja – those guys that can bat for six hours – but ultimately that’s not who I am; that’s not me as a cricketer,” he said.
“I don’t have the best defence, but I know when I’m in a really good frame of mind mentally and in an attacking frame of mind, that I can defend well and keep good balls out. Outside of that, I really want to play the way I want to play,” he added.
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