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Ignore Mitch Marsh’s career batting average of 32. The statistic that really matters is this: since the start of the 2013-14 summer, the all-rounder has made 1257 first-class runs at an average of 52.
The 23-year-old’s career batting figures often are used as evidence that he doesn’t deserve to be in the Australian Test team.
They are, however, misleading and skewed by the fact he began his first-class career at just 17 years old, one of the youngest players ever to debut in the Sheffield Shield competition.
Marsh looked unprepared for Shield cricket in 2009 but Western Australia were a woeful side (winning only five of 20 games across the 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons) so they probably figured he couldn’t do any worse than other older players.
In Perth, he had a reputation for being a party boy, as did his older brother Shaun, who didn’t always set the best example off the field.
In late 2012, both of them were suspended by their Big Bash League team the Perth Scorchers after a boozy celebration of the younger Marsh’s 21st birthday.
Mitch had been sent home from the Centre of Excellence after arriving to a training session clearly hungover earlier that year.
With injuries also hampering his development, Mitch had failed to go close to exploiting his talent in his first four seasons as a professional cricketer.
Then, in the 2013 off-season, reports emerged that his attitude had changed and his dedication to training had improved significantly. Not surprisingly, the 2013-14 season turned out well for the youngster.
That change took place roughly two years ago. Since his coming of age as an adult, Marsh’s results as a cricketer have been brilliant.
When assessing Marsh’s credentials, pay little attention to his returns prior to the age of 21.
Consider this: of Australia’s 16-man Ashes party, nine of them had not even made their first-class debut before the age of 21.
So why hold against him Marsh’s figures as a teenager playing a man’s sport? The Australian captain Michael Clarke was only 18 years old when he debuted for NSW and, like Marsh, he was criticised for his career first-class record when he first played Test cricket.
While other batsmen in domestic cricket like Brad Hodge owned first-class batting averages in the 50s, Clarke’s was comparatively modest.
He was only 23 years old, the same age as Marsh is now, and his average was rising rapidly, just like Marsh’s is, but was still skewed by his results as a teenager, the same issue afflicting Marsh.
The national selectors, though, saw something extraordinary in Clarke, just as the NSW selectors had before them. The current panel has identified that same rare ability in Marsh, as the Western Australia panel did when he was still in high school.
Marsh was only 19 when he was first appeared for Australia. It might only have been a Twenty20 match but it was in Johannesburg against the best team in the game.
Marsh did not look awed in the slightest by the South Africans and preceded to smash three sixes in four balls off one of the fastest and most intimidating bowlers in the world, Morne Morkel. Immediately, he looked at home in international cricket.
He has appeared similarly assured with the blade in his brief Test career, the highlight of which has been a mature and patient double of 87 and 47 as the Australian batting otherwise crumbled against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi.
Marsh may have made his entry to the top level with a ferocious display of striking, but his reputation as a cavalier batsman does not translate to the longest form of the game.
His blossoming as a batsman has coincided with a greater degree of circumspection. Marsh often is happy to grind for the first hour he arrives at the crease, comforted by the knowledge that once his eye is in he can clatter attacks.
During that wonderful 87 against Pakistan, he arrived at the crease with Australia mired in the muck at 5-100. Marsh recognised that Australia needed to halt Pakistan’s momentum, so for the next 45 minutes he simply knocked the ball around and turned over the strike where possible.
Once he and Clarke had steadied things, Marsh began to put the pressure back on his opponents. He accepted invitations from the Pakistan quicks to drive and used his feet to get after the spinners that had flummoxed his teammates.
It was the textbook construction of a Test innings, his dismissal apart. We saw evidence of this willingness to graft early on again during the first of his two consecutive centuries on this Ashes tour.
Even with Shane Watson motoring at the other end, Marsh just ambled to 24 from 55 balls. He then capitalised on this patient groundwork by blitzing the Kent attack to finish unbeaten on 101 from 94 balls.
Marsh always has been phenomenally gifted. Now, however, he is more than that – he is a composed and clever cricketer.
He is ready for Tests, ready for the Ashes, ready to replace Watson.