Marsh treading untried turf

Mitchell Marsh might be the most experienced one-day international player in the current incarnation of the world champions’ bowling line-up, but he’s never before faced a scenario like this.

With Australia staring hard at a third consecutive ODI defeat against a resurgent South Africa and the prospect that this five-match series might be decided before the tournament enters its final week.

Not that Marsh hasn’t experienced the pressure and the finality of having to win cut-throat matches in major global competitions, having been part of the triumphant 15-man World Cup squad in 2015.

And top-scorer for his team in the penultimate match of the recent tri-series against the West Indies and South Africa in the Caribbean, which Australia needed to win to ensure they reached the final from where they duly secured the trophy.

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It’s just that since he made his limited-overs international as a teenager in South Africa five years ago, the now 24-year-old has never been a part of three consecutive ODI defeats while wearing an Australia shirt.

"I can't remember losing two in a row in the time that I've played for Australia," Marsh said yesterday prior to the Australians sole training session at Durban’s Kingsmead Stadium where game three of the series begins tonight Australia time.

"Hopefully it's not three."

The last time Australia slumped to a hat-trick of ODI defeats was when they lost their five-match series against England 4-0 (with one game at Edgbaston abandoned without a ball bowled) in the UK in 2012. 

Image Id: FA7E4E9B49CC47B4A60815B2097149AA Image Caption: Egland quick Steven Finn removes Aussie skipper Michael Clarke in 2012 // Getty

A tour of which Marsh was not a part, and where fast bowler Brett Lee ended up heading his team’s batting averages.

Prior to that, Australia’s three-peat of defeats came in 2010 when they lost a one-off ODI to India at Visakhapatnam and then the first two matches of their three-game home series against Sri Lanka.

While Australia can’t be toppled from their current perch of world’s No.1 ODI team regardless of the outcome of this series, or those being fought between Pakistan and the West Indies (in the UAE) and Bangladesh and England (in Bangladesh), Australia’s entitlement to the top ranking is notionally up for grabs.

That’s certainly the way that Proteas’ opener Rilee Rossouw was viewing the potentially decisive third game when his team held a training session that was truncated by regular bouts of morning rain in the coastal city.

"They (Australia) are the best team in the world and if they don’t bounce back then they don’t deserve to be the best team in the world," Rossouw told a pre-match media conference, though in fairness he was more likely suggesting teams don’t get to the top of the pile without an innate capacity to arrest form slides.

"I’m pretty sure they’re going to come fighting with some big swings tomorrow out there on the field, and it’s all up to us how we’re going to counter-punch them." 

And while the switch from clear, dry batter-friendly conditions of the Highveld to the greener, damper coastal micro-climate at sea level might excite Australia’s put upon pace bowlers, it does in itself add another potent variable to an already challenging equation.

One that Marsh was quick to identify when asked what he knew about playing in the unique ambient conditions at Kingsmead, where Indian Ocean tidal movements are thought to influence the pitch’s behaviour and the damp, heavy air makes boundary hitting tough for batters in the final phases of a 50-over game.

“It rains a lot,” Marsh said of his few Durban experiences.

“Every time I play here, it's always rained.”

Indeed, Kingsmead became the target for social media ridicule after South Africa’s historic first ‘winter’ Test match against New Zealand last August was abandoned with no play possible on the final three days due to the sodden state of the outfield.

Which, in the wake of some major turf work conducted at the behest of Cricket South Africa just weeks before that match began, was unable to drain the 65mm of rain that fell on day two even though much of the last three days dawned fine and sunny.

Ground officials, who expect a near-capacity crowd of more than 13,000 for the day-night game, are confident the drainage issues have been fixed although neither team was able to conduct fielding practice on the arena on Tuesday after around 50mm of rain fell on Durban the previous night.

And while recent history indicates Australia rarely lose three ODIs on the trot, a longer term view suggests Kingsmead is a venue where they could be reasonably expected to notch a win.

Given that South Africa has not beaten their fierce rivals in an ODI played on this particular patch of home soil since April 2000.

Australia’s bowling attack on that day – led by Lee, McGrath, Damien Fleming and Shane Warne as well as the Waugh twins Stephen and Mark – represented a vastly different outfit to the inexperienced, unheralded group that will be rolled out tonight.

A new-look ‘fast bowlers’ union’ of which Marsh controversially installed himself as interim chairman at tour’s outset, much to the confected disdain of its incumbent boss Mitchell Starc who voiced his displeasure from Australia where he is recovering from a leg injury. 

"I wouldn't say I’m leading the attack, Starcy wasn't happy with me when I announced myself as the interim chairman," said Marsh who, with 40 ODIs to his name is the most capped bowler in the current Australia attack.

"In these conditions it's going to take more of a collective group effort.

"But it would be a great little piece of history for this team (to win the final three matches at Durban, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town and clinch the series).

"Whilst we've got a young side, there's no doubt we .. believe in ourselves.

"As an Australian cricketer you always got out there to win and that's something we'll be doing."