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Humble pie all 'round as Mitch Marsh rips through England

12th September, 2019
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12th September, 2019
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Australian all-rounder Mitch Marsh last night ripped through England’s middle order with a sensational display of swing bowling on day one of the fifth Ashes Test at The Oval.

The Australian selectors copped widespread criticism, including from yours truly, for selecting Marsh who had averaged ten with the bat and 59 with the ball in his previous six Tests.

Then Marsh started swinging the Dukes ball in both directions, making a fool of the English batsmen and his legion of critics.

England were well placed at 2-130 when the burly West Australian made his first breakthrough with a top-edged pull shot from Ben Stokes.

But the real carnage unfolded after tea as Marsh conjured a stunning spell. First he bowled a succession of out swingers to Jonny Bairstow before getting a yorker to tail back into to the keeper-batsman, trapping him plumb LBW.

Then he coaxed Sam Curran into driving at a wide sucker ball, earning an edge to second slip. Marsh followed that up by directing another in-swinging yorker at the front foot of Chris Woakes, who also was adjudged LBW. Just like that he had taken 3-11 in this burst of high-class swing bowling.

Earlier, uncharacteristic sloppiness in the field hurt Australia after captain Tim Paine’s unexpected choice to bowl first on a fairly benign pitch.

Mitch Marsh of Australia

Mitch Marsh (AAP Image/David Mariuz)

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The tourists have been excellent in the field across this series but were woeful last night, dropping England captain Joe Root three times.

The Oval is known as the flattest Test deck in England so it was a risk by Paine to opt to bowl first.

It seemed to be a particularly odd decision in light of Australia having flagged concerns about the workloads of their bowlers in recent days.

Not to mention the fact Australia have been a vastly weaker Test team when bowling first in away matches in recent years. In the past five years Australia have won just 22 per cent of away Tests when bowling first compared to 54 per cent when batting first.

The Aussie bowlers could have been forgiven for being grumpy with Paine’s decision. They must have been fuming when their teammate s then let them down badly in the field.

The first culprit was Peter Siddle, who himself has been tremendously unlucky with misfields this series, having had five catches dropped off his bowling.

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In the 21th over, Root aimed a lazy pull shot at a short ball from Pat Cummins and skied the ball to deep square leg. Somehow, Siddle turfed the most elementary of chances.

Two overs later Root nicked a beautiful delivery from Cummins only for Paine to grope at it one handed and put it down, continuing his ordinary series behind the stumps.

Only three overs after that the Englishman got a third slice of fortune. Root flashed at a wide, full delivery from Siddle and it flew to the right of second slip Steve Smith who dived but couldn’t clutch on to this hot chance.

The fact that Australia, despite these errors, managed to keep England’s batting line-up in check was a testament to their attack. The typically precise Peter Siddle lacked control. But otherwise Australia were terrific with the ball once more.

Cummins continued his astonishing Ashes, tormenting the home batsmen with both relentless accuracy and nasty short balls. Josh Hazlewood, meanwhile, built suffocating pressure just as he’s done all series.

Upstaging them all, though, was the uber-maligned all-rounder from the West. Marsh was superb.

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