Marsh's eye for spotting talent

The legend that cloaks Rod Marsh's rare talent for identifying and nurturing talent was largely born at the Adelaide Oval's indoor nets during the winter of 1991.

At the time, Marsh was the head coach of the recently-established national cricket academy and – with most of the academy scholarship holders on tour with the Australian under-19 team in England – he was watching a few aspiring young cricket scholars displaying their wares.

Imposing fast bowler Paul Wilson, a trainee accountant and part-time hotel bouncer, was asked to unleash his best against a 16-year-old kid whose local cricket club in Launceston had raised sufficient cash to send him to Adelaide for a fortnight's tuition in the hope it might launch his career.

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Clad in no more resilient headwear than a cloth cap, the teenager fearlessly pulled the first ball he received – a bouncer aimed squarely at his unprotected skull – in front of square leg with unerring precision.

"I turned to my colleague Richard Done and we looked at each other in sheer amazement," Marsh wrote in a newspaper column years later.

"'This bloke will play for Australia,' I said."

The next ball, a repeat dose that Wilson delivered from well past the popping crease so as to further reduce young Ricky Ponting's reaction time and therefore margin for error, was hit even more sweetly to the same place.

During Marsh's 10-year tenure at the cricket academy, a roll-call of Australia's cricket greats passed through under his intuitive eye – Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist, Brett Lee, Jason Gillespie, Justin Langer and Michael Clarke.

In addition to instilling the trademarks of his own game that yielded him 96 Test matches, almost as many ODIs and the then record for the most dismissals by a Test wicketkeeper – be aggressive, be entertaining, be hard-working and be bloody competitive – he honed his personal selection philosophy.

"When in doubt, pick young players – because youth will rarely let you down," he was known to say.

Of course, that mantra was partly driven by the fact he had invested heavily in – and had born close witness to – the outstanding talent that Australia seemed to produce on an almost yearly basis in the late 80s through to the start of the new millennium.

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It was an approach that Marsh carried with him in 2001 when, to the surprise of countless Australians and many across the cricket world, he accepted the challenge to head up the new academy established by the England and Wales Cricket Board.

At the time, Marsh defended his switch in allegiance and brushed off any criticism in typically forthright style by pointing out that his obligation was to the strength of cricket at a global level.

"When you finish playing you obviously want your country to win and you take an interest in it," he told the UK's Guardian newspaper upon his England appointment.

"But when you've been in the game as long as I have, the major interest becomes the game itself. Cricket needs a strong England."

At that point, England cricket was struggling at international level and the new academy was designed to replicate the Australian model and thereby reinvigorate the game in its homeland through the identification and development of talented youngsters.

The calibre of players that attended that institution – whether as full or part-time scholars – included future England captains Andrew Strauss and Andrew Flintoff as well as Steve Harmison, who went on to be ranked the world's best fast bowler for a time.

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They also helped form the nucleus of the England team that was re-shaped when Marsh was added to the national selection panel in 2002, and which famously went on to win the Ashes for the first time in 16 years when they triumphed over Ponting's team in England in 2005.

But before that success had been sealed and cricket had re-established a foothold on the British sporting landscape, Marsh had stood down from his role as an England selector with his four-year term as academy coach set to expire at the end of that Ashes series.

It was a move that came amid reports of disagreements within the selection panel – that also included then England coach Duncan Fletcher – most notably over the decision to play wicketkeeper Geraint Jones ahead of his younger rival Chris Read.

Marsh made no secret of the fact he considered Read a far more talented 'keeper, while Fletcher argued that Marsh was simply backing players who had come through his own program at the academy.

The wisdom of selectors is only ever laid bare in retrospect, and while Jones played a key role in that 2005 Ashes win there are many who maintain that Read was a far superior gloveman who should have played considerably more than his 15 Tests.

Upon quitting England, Marsh took on the role of head coach at the ICC's Global Cricket Academy in Dubai where he worked for a year until he returned to Australia, initially to undertake a review of the South Australian Cricket Association before being installed as SACA's high performance director.

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He left that role in 2008 and – along with former Test fast bowler Andy Bichel – joined the Australian selection panel in 2011 following the release of the Australian Team Performance Review chaired by Don Argus.

Upon his appointment as a national selector, Marsh said: "It's been a decade since I last worked for CA (and) certainly, the most rewarding time I ever had was working with CA at the academy in Adelaide.

"This is an important role and I'm looking forward to watching young Australian cricketers develop and to our established cricketers continuing to improve."

Now, he takes over from his former WA skipper John Inverarity to lead a panel that also includes former Test batsman Mark Waugh, ex-chairman of selectors Trevor Hohns and incumbent Australian coach Darren Lehmann.

This, in itself, will create a fascinating dynamic.

Lehmann was rumoured to have held significant sway in selection matters in the panel's previous iteration, and there is no doubt he and Marsh share a similar view on how cricket should be played – aggressively, uncompromisingly and, above all, to win.

With a celebratory beer or two to toast the conclusion of each successful stage.

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But Marsh was also the supremo who oversaw the end of Lehmann's captaincy reign with South Australia, although the pair have long settled any lingering differences.

Neither character is shy in expressing an opinion, and where Inverarity was considered, personable and diplomatic in his role as chair Marsh is renowned for being blunt, occasionally gruff and not especially fond of dealing with the media which is an essential element of the role.

Inverarity, a highly successful education administrator, found the glaring public scrutiny that accompanied such a high-profile, much debated and often thankless job quite confronting.

"The trouble is you've got one chairman and 20 million selectors," one former head of the panel used to observe.

And as Marsh may discover, it only takes a couple of losses for those 20 million experts to start airing their expert views. Loud and often.