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Starc and Mitch Marsh demolish South Africa

2nd March, 2018
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Mitchell Starc's amazing performances have been forgotten in the washup of the first Test. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
Expert
2nd March, 2018
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Australia all but sealed victory in the first Test in Durban yesterday, manhandling South Africa thanks to superb performances by Mitchell Starc, Mitch Marsh and Nathan Lyon.

Starc (5-34) and Lyon (3-50) gutted the Proteas, who could manage only a paltry 162 in reply to Australia’s 351. The visitors were able to build that good total thanks to an innings of great maturity and immense skill by Marsh (96).

After Marsh placed Australia in the ascendancy, the Australian bowlers built on his good work.

South Africa made a brisk start, skipping away to 0-27 after seven overs, before in-form spinner Nathan Lyon rocked the Proteas with two wickets in his first over.

First he beat Dean Elgar in the flight and got the ball to straighten on the left hander, who lobbed a return catch to the diving Lyon. Then the off spinner caught the inside edge of Hashim Amla’s bat, earning a sharp catch for Cameron Bancroft at short leg.

Lyon always looked likely to have a major influence on this Test from the moment Proteas spinner Keshav Maharaj earned sharp spin from the dry Durban surface in the first session of day one. The parched nature of the pitch also brought reverse swing into the equation.

Nathan Lyon

(AAP Image/Richard Wainwright)

Australia’s finest exponent of this skill, Mitchell Starc, left the Proteas in a mess when he dismissed Faf du Plessis and Theunis de Bruyn in quick succession.

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Those wickets were remarkably similar as Starc, operating from around the wicket, angled the ball in at the right handers before getting it to straighten through the air and kiss their outside edges.

In between these bursts by Starc and Lyon, pace dynamo Pat Cummins produced a cracking short ball which surprised opener Aidan Markram, who could only fend it to short leg. Lyon later returned to cut short an ominously-fluent innings from Quentin de Kock, who was threatening to bat himself back into form.

Having flighted the ball nicely to de Kock he then pushed through a much flatter, quicker delivery and castled the young gun. Starc wasn’t done either – he, too, returned to the attack with a vengeance, grabbing 3-2 in the space of eight balls to kill off the South African innings.

Spin and reverse swing had reduced South Africa to rubble. Just as influential as Starc’s destruction, however, was the composed knock compiled by Marsh.

Any lingering doubts I had about the rebirth of the 26-year-old all-rounder dissolved yesterday as he completed the finest innings of his career. It was a near-flawless knock against a sensational bowling attack on a pitch which did not make batting easy. In fact, the only glaring mistake Marsh made was the one which caused his dismissal four runs shy of what would have been a greatly-deserved ton.

Marsh’s decision to try to bludgeon a boundary to bring up his hundred, only to spoon a catch to mid-on, was especially jarring given the admirable manner in which he had protected his wicket to that point. Over the course of Marsh’s rampant return to Tests, which has seen him crack 416 runs at 104 in four matches, there’s been a lot of focus on the technical improvements made by the all-rounder.

I’ve written at length about how Marsh honed his technique during his last lengthy absence from Test cricket.

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What’s been less celebrated has been the wonderful patience and match awareness Marsh has added to his lengthy list of cricketing attributes. At Perth he grafted hard early, weathered the second new ball and then began to unfurl his full array of strokes as the match opened up for him.

At Melbourne, Australia needed to bat for a draw so Marsh shelved his aggression and blocked his way to 29no from 166 balls. Then, at Sydney, with England on the ropes, he came out and delivered a thudding roundhouse, cruising to a swift 101.

That was all very impressive – both in statistical and technical terms. But there was a still a part of me, and I’d imagine a part of many Australian fans, that was unsure Marsh could replicate that in South Africa. It’s one thing to boss a very poor England attack on batting-friendly home pitches, another thing all together to command a dominant Proteas attack in conditions more amenable to bowing.

Yet Marsh was in utter control from the start of his innings to the moment he had that innings-ending brain fade. When he arrived at the crease Australia were vulnerable at 4-151 with their big guns all gone.

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Then Marsh batted like a big gun. His balance was perfect, his footwork assured, his defence tight. Following a strategy which is as useful in Tests now as it was a century ago, Marsh paid due respect to good balls and waited patiently until the bowlers strayed into his hitting zones.

Those zones are now wide thanks to the great improvement Marsh has made in his back foot play. Earlier in his career Marsh liked to prop on the front foot, keen to unleash thunderous drives. With that over-commitment to the front foot consigned to history, Marsh is now as dangerous with a horizontal bat as with a vertical blade.

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His cutting was a feature of this innings as he exploited the slightest width from both the quicks and spinner Keshav Maharaj. Combined with his powerful pulling and confident driving, this made Marsh a very difficult man to bowl to, with the margin of error small.

There is now strong reason to believe Marsh is not merely flattering to deceive, but that he now possesses a blend of talent, technique and temperament which can make him a force in Test cricket.

He, Starc and Lyon have all but ensured Australia will head into the second Test with a 1-0 series lead.

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