We are gathered here today, to celebrate the life and end of Shaun Marsh’s test career.
Shaun Marsh, son of Geoff and brother to the slightly more talented Mitchell, has been a Test cricketer since September 2011, and despite polarising opinion throughout most of that time, it is still a sad time.
They say people like something you do early and something just before the end, and in Shaun Marsh’s case, he at least ticks the first box.
He peaked early with a magnificent 141 on debut in Sri Lanka, and a career was ready to bloom like a Bougainvillea vines choking the suburban six-foot fence.
Sadly, like a lot of debut centurions, the early promise has never been quite fulfilled.
Not that he didn’t try, nor did the selectors not give him every chance. He was dropped and born again like a movie star in and out of rehab.
And, it was not as if he was a completed busted arse that never did anything. He did.
He has scored some wonderful centuries, recently against England.
But with every century there was a little thought in the back of the mind, “Great – that score will keep in the side until the next run of failures.”
For instance these are the stats for his batting in between the centuries.
- Average 16 – 1 Half Century in 10 Innings
- Average 25 – 3 Half Centuries in 17 Innings (1 No)
- Average 25 – 4 Half Centuries in 12 Innings
- Average 28 – 1 Half Century in 4 innings
- Average 13 – 0 Half Centuries in 12 innings
He is not young, but age isn’t everything and the test batsman is a specie who can outlive other professional athletes, but it does work against him now.
Fair enough if you drop a player a few times to get their confidence back, but at his age can you expect him to kick on after so many chances.
May as well let a much younger player suffer the same fate, as the on pitch numbers can’t be too different, but the years ahead for potential improvement are.
Some regard Shaun Marsh as the Mitchell Pearce of Australian Cricket, he even looks like him a bit. A very fine talent, dropped and reborn without success at Origin level. Who has some very good days, but Australia will never win consistently with him. Much as NSW proved this year in the State of Origin once the Pearce link was severed.
It is easy to pick on Shaun Marsh, so we have, even in his final hours and the pads aren’t quite dry yet from the scorching Dubai heat.
But that Dubai heat sadly saw another chapter of disappointment in a career which has had more chances than most cricketers in history.
He’s had his go, and we congratulate him on his Test Career, and wish him eternal rest in the Sheffield Shield and various T20 competitions across the world.
Shaun Marsh will be survived in the Test side by his brother Mitchel Marsh for at least another series before India expose his inadequacies with the red ball, and relative mediocrity with the bat outside the occasional T20 innings in Test cricket.
