Marsh's irresistible form raises provocative Ashes question

Last Tuesday in Mount Maunganui, 24 hours out from the first game of Australia's three-match T20I series against New Zealand, T20I skipper Mitchell Marsh was asked by a New Zealand journalist whether his mind was on the Ashes at all in terms of trying to force his way back into the Test team.

"Ha. No," Marsh said.

He giggled again as the press pack paused, perhaps taken aback by the emphatic answer, and no more questions were posed on any topic.

Five days later he leaves New Zealand with two player of the match awards from the only two completed games, a player of the series award and the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy, after scores of 85 off 43 and 103 not out from 52. The latter was one of his finest for Australia, single-handedly guiding them home on a tricky surface where he looked like he was playing a different sport to every other batter in the game. His first T20I century saw him join Shane Watson, Glenn Maxwell, David Warner, and Josh Inglis as the only Australian men with international centuries in all three forms.

In his last seven international innings dating back to the T20I series against South Africa in August he has scores of 54, 88, 18, 100, 85, 9* and 103* and has batted as well as he ever has in international cricket, especially against the pace collection of Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Nandre Burger, Matt Henry, Jacob Duffy, Kyle Jamieson and Ben Sears who have troubled some of Australia's Test batters in the same games.

Despite what Marsh says publicly about a possible Test return, which is understood to be in keeping with what he has said privately, his form has done nothing to quell the whispers that have been floating around Australian cricket that Marsh could be called upon as a "break glass in case of emergency" option for the Ashes.

It sounds far-fetched, and merely the notion will enrage a large swathe of Australian fans who believe Marsh has had more than enough chances at Test level. But the whispers are real. Chairman of selectors George Bailey had sowed the seeds as far back as April.

"I don't necessarily think that his red-ball career is over," Bailey said when Australia's 2025-26 contract list was announced.

"I don't think he was scoring the runs that he would have wanted, or we would have wanted, when we left him out of the Test side. But I still think there's an incredibly exciting skill-set there with the bat, the way he can rip a game open.

"If you look ahead to a team like England, and the way they play their cricket and the way they seem to be framing up their team, I think he's got a skill-set there that could be helpful."

However, a Marsh Ashes comeback would likely come with a large set of caveats.

It would require many of the fears around the form of the incumbent Test top six to come to fruition early in the series. Australia's batting would have to struggle mightily in the first two Tests in Perth and Brisbane for the possibility to be genuinely entertained. Even then, those struggles would have to be of a very particular variety.

Australia's Test batters would have to be struggling against the pace and bounce of Jofra Archer, Mark Wood, Josh Tongue and Ben Stokes in particular.

In the 2023 series, England turned to a bombardment of bouncers in the second Test to try and change the course of the series. While unsuccessful at Lord's, that plan rolled over to the third Test at Headingley where the injection of a fresh Wood at the expense of an aging Jimmy Anderson turned the tide in an instant. Wood took 5 for 34 targeting helmets and stumps exclusively with sustained heat at 145kph plus. His threat at one end helped another fresh man Chris Woakes threaten front pads and outside edges at the other.

Marsh not only withstood it, but thrived pounding a run-a-ball 118 in his first Test innings in four years having been called in for the injured Cameron Green. One particular pull shot, from a 146kph Wood bouncer, that sailed over the two men stationed square on the rope and landed 20 rows back among the Headingley crowd is seared in the memory of the Australian team, as is the silence that followed it from a packed Headingley crowd that had been raucous due to England's morning success.

Marsh produced similarly thunderous cross bat shots that landed among a more sparse Bay Oval crowd on Saturday night in a brutal take down of Henry, Duffy, Sears and Jimmy Neesham while Test batters Travis Head and Alex Carey succumbed on a spicy surface that had spent two full days under cover.

There is a thought that if the Ashes turns into another bouncer-fest, and Australia's batters aren't handling the heat, then there is no one better equipped than Marsh to provide a counter-attack in the vein he did in Headingley.

No one runs quite as hot or as cold as Marsh. Right now he is white-hot. This time last year he was entering a run of ice-cold form that saw him return red-ball scores of 9, 6, 6, 47, 9, 5, 2, 4, and 0 that eventually led to him being left out of the fifth Test against India in Sydney for Beau Webster.

It is incredible that Marsh, with a Test average of just 28.53 from the same number of innings, 80, as Sir Donald Bradman had in his career, can still be such an alluring prospect at his best when his mean has been clear to see over an 11-year Test career.

Marsh is unlikely to face a red ball before the start of the Ashes. Family and fishing will most likely be his priority over the brief time off after New Zealand ahead of leading Australia in a three-match ODI series and five-match T20 series against India that runs up to the first Test.

Western Australia are also unclear on whether Marsh will be available to play Sheffield Shield cricket in November following the India series ahead of the BBL. Marsh also has not bowled a ball since the Boxing Day Test last year having missed the Champions Trophy in February due to a back injury. He has said his bowling remains "offline" until further notice and there is a chance he plays the rest of his career as a specialist batter.

Whether the glass is broken in case of an emergency or not, Marsh's form at the top of order in Australia's T20I side solidifies their plans heading towards the World Cup.

Australia had won their previous two T20I series against West Indies and South Africa without major contributions from the captain, with the powerful middle-order stepping up. In the absence of Inglis, Maxwell and Green in New Zealand it was Marsh who carried his team.

It bodes well for when Australia get their best available together for India and Sri Lanka in February and March. Their unrelenting power hitting has won them nine of their last 10 completed T20Is. Winning in spite of a reckless and probably needless wobble in Saturday's third T20I in Mount Maunganui will only reinforce that the high-octane freewheeling style, branded in Marsh's image, will be what they stick to when the pressure is ramped up in the World Cup.

Whether it's needed, or called for, should the Ashes pressure reach fever pitch before then, remains to be seen.