Slow Marsh to safety a source of pride

If it's possible to steal a quiet moment when you're in the centre of the world's largest Test cricket stadium with the game's foremost batter at the denouement of a showpiece Ashes Test, then Mitchell Marsh shared one with his skipper Steve Smith this evening.

Minutes earlier, the pair had steered their team to a position from which Smith and his opposing captain Joe Root agreed a result was irretrievable.

And after shaking hands with their rivals and the officiating umpires, the two unbowed Australians walked from the late afternoon sun towards the below ground-level dressing room.

As they neared their teammates who had clustered in the Australia dug-out as the final act of a five-day stalemate played out, some of whom had draped blankets over their knees to ward off the Melbourne summer chill, Marsh confided in his captain.

Amid the acknowledgement of Smith's 23rd Test century, the 26-year-old allrounder who had nothing of such substance to celebrate having ended the match with an unremarkable '29 not out' glowing against his name on the MCG scoreboard, was bursting with pride.

An emotion that was reciprocated by Smith, who had watched perhaps the most telling chapter of Marsh's long and often contentious narrative as a Test cricketer unfold over the course of 201 minutes from a prime vantage point.

A distance of 22 yards, at the other end of that strip of vulcanised earth that doubled as the MCG's unyielding pitch for the fourth Magellan Ashes Test.

"I'm really pleased with him, the way he played," Smith said of his partner in an unbeaten fifth-wicket stand of 85 runs chiselled from almost 50 overs of grinding, gruelling batting against a high-quality four-man seam attack

"Walking off today he actually said, 'I'm proud of myself - 12 months ago I wouldn't have been able to do that'.

"He's come a long way. 

"He's had to change the way he normally plays, he's normally quite aggressive and very positive. 

"To face 160 balls for his (29) was a really good effort."

The making of Mitchell Marsh, more than three years in the manufacture for a man who was initially earmarked as international material when he captained Australia's Under-19 World Cup team, was widely believed to have taken place in Perth a fortnight ago.

That was when, having reclaimed the Test berth he surrendered when the shoulder injury he suffered in India last February required surgical reconstruction, he plundered his maiden century at the elite level in a manner that silenced his many (and habitually vocal) doubters.

But those closest to the ever-affable, often self-deprecating right-hander knew there was far more to the evolution that had taken place in his batting during the enforced nine-month absence from top-level cricket while his shoulder mended.

Marsh had worked assiduously with his Perth-based batting coach Scott Meuleman to tighten his defensive technique, to temper his tendency to chase the ball in search of scoring options, and to soften the force with which he played all but his most offensive strokes.

But the match circumstance that prevailed when he returned to Test batting at the WACA - with Australia 4-248 and rattling along at around four runs per over, and Smith already sitting unbeaten on 116 – coupled with the prevailing conditions of his home pitch meant he could revert to his expansive game.

The 181 he bludgeoned from 234 balls included 29 boundaries, and apart from the capacity he showed to concentrate and preserve his wicket for almost twice as long (322 minutes) as his previous best Test effort (164 in his debut series against Pakistan in the UAE in 2014) it was an innings that many long believed he could play.

Laced with powerful square-of-the-wicket blows and booming drives through the covers and mid-wicket, while he stood as an intimidating presence at the crease.

The innings that he had yet to show he was capable of, but now is demonstrably a part of a repertoire that makes him one of the most appealing all-round packages in world cricket, was the one that he produced today.

With the only similarity to his Perth knock being that he went to the wicket upon the dismissal of his older brother, Shaun, to join Smith who had already spent almost four hours in the middle in compiling 50.

With England's 75-overs-old ball showing signs of reverse swing, and in the hands of Test cricket's most successful fast bowling combination of James Anderson and Stuart Broad, it took Marsh 20 deliveries to find his first run.

Throughout which his new-fashioned defence was challenged as regularly as was his big-match temperament.

He opened his scoring with a drive for four through the covers, but he faced a further 79 deliveries – from which he battled to scrounge an additional six runs – before he again felt the relief of hitting the fence.

A repeat of the stroke that netted him his first boundary, to celebrate the 100th ball of an innings that now had Australia within sight of safety.

When the third and final boundary of his stoic vigil arrived – a sweetly timed back-foot drive behind point off Broad – Australia was almost 80 runs ahead with six wickets securely up their sleeves, and a draw was the only result that beckoned.

It was a further hour before play was abandoned by mutual consent, soon after Smith reached his century, and the innings that Marsh had for so long been challenged to play was stayed rather than stopped.

As the Test hung in the balance on Friday evening, the allrounder had acknowledged that Australia's aspirations for a draw (they had conceded victory was beyond them a day earlier) lay with the ability of batters to exercise a vigilance he had yet to show at the foremost level.

"On a pitch like this, the game moves a lot slower," Marsh had said.

"So as a batsman, you have to be prepared to bat for a long period of time and face a lot of balls to get your runs because the ball is not coming on as well, and there's a lot of fielders in front of the wicket."

In fashioning the second-longest innings of his 23-Test career, in the match after he produced his lengthiest, Marsh proved to all that he now owns the walk to match all the talk.

And his captain couldn't be prouder.

2017-18 International Fixtures

Magellan Ashes Series

Australia Test squad: Steve Smith (c), David Warner (vc), Ashton Agar, Cameron Bancroft, Usman Khawaja, Peter Handscomb, Shaun Marsh, Mitchell Marsh, Tim Paine (wk), Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood, Jackson Bird.

England Test squad: Joe Root (c), James Anderson (vc), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Jake Ball, Gary Ballance, Stuart Broad, Alastair Cook, Mason Crane, Tom Curran, Ben Foakes, Dawid Malan, Craig Overton, Ben Stokes, Mark Stoneman, James Vince, Chris Woakes.

First Test Australia won by 10 wickets. Scorecard

Second Test Australia won by 120 runs (Day-Night). Scorecard

Third Test Australia won by an innings and 41 runs. Scorecard

Fourth Test Match drawn. Tickets

Fifth Test SCG, January 4-8 (Pink Test). Scorecard

Gillette ODI Series v England

First ODI MCG, January 14. Tickets

Second ODI Gabba, January 19. Tickets

Third ODI SCG, January 21. Tickets

Fourth ODI Adelaide Oval, January 26. Tickets

Fifth ODI Perth Stadium, January 28. Tickets

Prime Minister's XI

PM's XI v England Manuka Oval, February 2. Tickets

Gillette T20 trans-Tasman Tri-Series

First T20I Australia v NZ, SCG, February 3. Tickets

Second T20I – Australia v England, Blundstone Arena, February 7. Tickets

Third T20I – Australia v England, MCG, February 10. Tickets

Fourth T20I – NZ v England, Wellington, February 14

Fifth T20I – NZ v Australia, Eden Park, February 16

Sixth T20I – NZ v England, Seddon Park, February 18

Final – TBC, Eden Park, February 21