Mitchell Marsh

Part of one of the most well-known family names in Australian cricket, Mitchell Marsh, an allrounder who can hit 140kph and hard-hitting middle-order batsman, has been an alluring prospect for Australia in all three formats but has struggled to cement his place at international level despite some outstanding performances on the big stage.

In 2018 he ascended to the Australian Test vice-captaincy in the wake of the ball-tampering scandal, only to be dropped from all three formats and lose his Cricket Australia contract due to a string of failures at Test level in particular. But in 2021 he returned to the T20I fold and starred on two tours of West Indies and Bangladesh before producing a stunning innings in the T20 World Cup final, where his 77 not out off 50 balls helped Australia to their maiden title and earned him Player of the Match honours.

Marsh squeezed Shane Watson out of the Test side during the 2015 Ashes tour and was given time to settle into the No.6 role, although his bowling was arguably the stronger feature of his game during 2015. That had not been the case in his debut Test series against Pakistan in the UAE in 2014, when he scored 87 and 47 in his second Test. He never quite settled until a century at the WACA in the third Test of the 2017-18 Ashes announced his arrival. He followed that with another in Sydney - brought up in emotional scenes with his brother, Shaun, at the crease - and then made a pivotal match-winning 96 in the first Test win in Durban before Australian cricket plunged into crisis.

Justin Langer's appointment as coach combined with Marsh's popularity among team-mates saw him appointed as a joint Test vice-captain. However, he only played one Test during the 2018-19 home summer - failing twice with the bat against India at the MCG. He returned as part of the Ashes squad in 2019, recalled to the side at The Oval where he took his maiden five-wicket haul, but his following home summer was disrupted when he broke his hand thumping the dressing room wall at the WACA following a dismissal in the Sheffield Shield.

Marsh had been earmarked for high honours ever since he captained the Australia Under-19s to victory in the 2010 World Cup in New Zealand. He made his T20I debut at 19, having enjoyed his first taste of state cricket at just 17. Marsh honed his skills in the Australian dressing room as a child, when his father Geoff was the national coach. He was also a promising junior Australian rules footballer and hails from a prolific sporting family; alongside the cricket lineage his sister Melissa was a basketballer for Perth Lynx in the WNBL.
ESPNcricinfo staff