Daniel Marsh retires from first-class cricket

Daniel Marsh, the man who captained Tasmania to their first Pura Cup title, has announced his retirement from first-class cricket. Marsh, 36, will step down after this week's Sheffield Shield match against Victoria at the MCG, which will be his 150th first-class appearance in a career spanning 17 seasons.

The son of the great wicketkeeper Rod Marsh, he began his career with South Australia in 1993-94 before moving to Tasmania after three summers with the Redbacks. A reliable middle-order batsman and left-arm spinner, Marsh effectively took over the state's captaincy in 2003-04; the rarely available Ricky Ponting was officially the skipper.

He spent four seasons as de facto leader and two summers as the official captain, guiding Tasmania to two domestic one-day titles in 2004-05 and 2007-08. Marsh handed the captaincy to George Bailey for this season but he was part of the FR Cup-winning team again, but it is for delivering the 2006-07 Pura Cup triumph that he will be best remembered.

The 421-run win in the final against New South Wales gave Tasmania their first domestic four-day title after missing out in three previous deciders. Marsh said he had no doubt that this was the right time for him to depart from the first-class arena.

"It has been an amazing time in Tasmanian cricket and I feel very fortunate to have been involved," Marsh said. "I am very confident that now is the right time to retire and look forward to spending more time with my family. I wish the Tasmanian team all the best for the future and will look forward to watching them play whenever possible."

With one match remaining in his career, Marsh has 8139 first-class runs at 37.68 and 174 wickets at 46.73. In 129 one-day games he has made 3119 runs at 33.53 and collected 61 victims at 49.96. Marsh will depart as Tasmania's fourth leading all-time first-class run scorer and the most capped player in the state's one-day history.