Is there a need to have a backup allrounder and should it really be Mitch Marsh?

After a four-year hiatus from the longest format, Mitchell Marsh has been picked in Australia’s 17-man World Test Championship Final and Ashes squad.

The chair of the national selection panel, George Bailey stated that the need for a backup all-rounder was a key reason for choosing to place the younger Marsh brother in the squad.

Marsh’s selection and Bailey’s reasoning bring forth two questions – the first question is whether there is a constant need to have an allrounder in the team even if that player may not be one of the best available players in the country and the second is that if there must always be an allrounder in the playing XI then is Marsh truly the right candidate to be the backup allrounder?

Cameron Green is a unicorn. Green is in the team because he is genuinely one of the best eleven players in the country and not just because he can provide with both bat and ball.

The 6 foot 8 Western Australian has a Sheffield Shield batting average of 52.97 and a 32.12 bowling average along with a very promising start to his Test career.

He is one of the top 6 batsmen in the country and is a more than capable bowler. Green can bat with gritty determination, brilliant temperament, and excellent technique. He bowls 140KMPH with accurate line and lengths and catches everything that comes his way at gully.

Having an allrounder just for the sake of having an allrounder is not a worthwhile endeavour. In Test Cricket, allrounders need to have at least one skill that is good enough to get them into the team even if they did not bat or bowl.

Otherwise, the allrounder is nothing more than a ‘bits and pieces’ player and a net-negative in the longest format in comparison to what a specialist with only one primary skill can bring.

Australia’s obsession with an allrounder in the past is what lead to Mitch Marsh having an incredibly long rope in the Test team and saw him have the unenviable record of the lowest batting average of any Australian batsman in the top six to play more than 40 innings since 1896.

From 2019 until Green’s debut in December 2020 against India, Australia maintained a policy of picking teams with 6 specialist batsmen and 4 bowlers. In the 13 Tests that Australia played in that period, they fielded an allrounder only once during the 2019 Ashes Test at The Oval where the Aussies were beaten by 135 runs.

In the 12 games where an allrounder did not play in that period, Australia won 9, drew 2, and lost 1 game.

While eight out of the 13 games in this time period did occur in Australia and thus meant that Australia did have the advantage in the majority of these matches, it still does show that the Aussies can win without having an allrounder in their side. Especially when considering that in the last Ashes series in England, both of Australia’s wins came when not fielding an allrounder.

Even if we were to say that having an allrounder is of paramount importance to the balance of the Test team, is Mitch Marsh truly the best allrounder available for selection after Green? The clear logic behind Marsh being the preferred allrounder is that he has performed well in England.

Even then his stellar performances have come with a ball in hand and not with the bat.

In four Test matches in England, Marsh has a bowling average of 14.83 with 15 wickets and a batting average of 14.83 across 6 innings. A Test average of 25.20 and 14.83 batting average is not exactly ideal for a player that may be looked to bat in the top 6 or 7 of the lineup.

With Marsh’s best coming with the ball in England, it is concerning that his bowling workloads haven’t been anywhere near what would be required of him if he had to step into the Test arena once more since he has only played a single First-Class game in the past two years. In ODI cricket from 2021 to the present, Marsh hasn’t once bowled out the full quota of 10 overs in a game.

Mitchell Marsh and Shaun Marsh are feeling the heat. (Photo by Lee Warren/Gallo Images/Getty Images)

Marsh has also only recently resumed bowling again in the IPL for the Delhi Capitals after ankle surgery to an injury sustained in the first match of the Australia vs Zimbabwe ODI series in August 2022 that saw him play with the injury for over 12 months. Marsh has also had extensive injury lay-offs in the past.

The allrounder was sent home from the 2017 tour of India due to a shoulder injury and has had ankle issues in the past as well. Marsh was ruled out of a county stint with Surrey and the tours limited-overs tours of England and Zimbabwe in 2017.

In 2020, he rolled his ankle in his first over for the Sunrisers Hyderabad which led to him being sidelined for the rest of the IPL. Marsh’s injury history and lack of Test match-level workload poses a serious threat of re-injury.

Let’s of course all touch wood and hope that nothing untoward was to happen to Cameron Green or to any player for that matter. However, if for some reason Australia did need to call upon Cameron Green’s reserve, the decision to pick Marsh for the Ashes for team balance reasons is a gamble that may backfire.