Forgotten Marsh sets it all right

Shaun Marsh, more than the Sharmas Rohit and Ishant, is the prime paradox of our times. He feasts on Indian bowlers every April and May, but when his side is whitewashing India in Tests at home, all his IPL money can't buy him a run. If you mix the formats for a second, just the thought that a Western Australian is more at home in India than in Australia is plain wrong.

He scores a dazzling century against the No.1 Test side in the world in their own backyard to set up one of Australia's more cherished series wins, but then fizzles out again to go back to struggle in first-class cricket. He is Kings XI Punjab's single-biggest match-winner, arguably no one has won more matches off his own bat in the IPL. He has scored fifties in successive BBL finals, winning the match award in one of them, but he doesn't find a place in the Kings XI starting XI.

Then one fine day he arrives, thanks to an injury to a high scorer in the Kings XI side this year, captain George Bailey, and bats as if he has been playing in these conditions forever. He does everything Marsh, stays leg side of the ball to hit it over covers, goes with the spin when legspinners come on and get the better of Glenn Maxwell, the ball flies all over the place, and once again it is the inexperienced Indian bowlers that are in the line of the fire.

You can't blame Marsh for picking and choosing well. In the main match he scored only 11 off 12 balls faced from James Faulkner, Chris Morris and Shane Watson put together, but he made sure he was there when he could put Rahul Tewatia and Deepak Hooda under pressure. And those runs were pressure runs because by the time Marsh found that next level the asking rate had already crossed two a ball, and there were 60 of those balls still to go.

Two good aspects of that Marsh innings were that he had still managed to somehow score 37 off 27 by then, and that when he decided to take the lesser bowlers on he did it well. Cover and point remained his favoured regions, but against legspinners he didn't mind midwicket and straight down the ground either. There was a languidness to the innings that is rarely missing in a Marsh effort; maybe it did on a slow MCG surface when he scored 99 against India in the last Test of the year.

Marsh did fall to a wrong'un when he and Miller were on the charge, and he did target the Indian bowlers a little, but come the Super Over and he would take every little question mark off a remarkable effort. There he was at the non-striker's end, playing his first-ever Super Over - although he would have surely thought of it during the BBL final - watching the ridiculous: Miller, who scored 54 off 30 in the main match, missing a knee-high full toss.

Get this: you are now as good as nine down. That is an underrated aspect of the Super Over. You can't just blindly slog as you might have the freedom to do during the final over of a normal innings. One more mistake, and it is all over. And his partner now was Maxwell, who is batting a bit like Marsh did during the 2011-12 Test series against India. And Marsh was not even on strike now. And Maxwell swung, and he sliced it, and it flew towards deep cover. This could have been 0 all out then and there. Marsh looked at the ball as he ran, and luckily it fell short of the man running in.

Marsh now had an opportunity to set it all right. To take this escape act to its fruition. Maybe signs were there all along: Sanju Samson missed a run-out in the last over of the main match, Faulkner then bowled length to allow Akshar Patel to hit him for a four to tie the match, and now this. Marsh was going to get another chance. And how he grabbed it. He got a high full toss, but the finality with which he hit it over cover - add to it that it was signalled a no-ball - rattled Morris. In his 4-0-34-1, Morris had been exceptional in the main match. Now he didn't know what to bowl to Marsh.

The next ball was short, and Marsh was clearly on top of him, smoking it through midwicket. Morris got the length right next ball, bowling a low full toss, only a few inches fuller than a yorker, but Marsh absolutely drilled it back down the ground. Marsh had kept Kings XI alive again.

As Virender Sehwag said later, this defeat might not mean a big loss to Rajasthan Royals, who have won five out of six, but it is huge for Kings XI, only their second win in five games, a look-in they desperately needed. It felt the same when Marsh launched into Tewatia: 17 runs off the 11th over, and still Kings XI needed two a ball. At that point it didn't feel like much seeing how Kings XI were struggling; they will hope this win gives them similar impetus on the points table. They just better make space for Marsh even when everybody is fit.