Aussie cricket legend Rod Marsh has died at the age of 74 after suffering a major heart attack last week.
Widely regarded as one of Australia's greatest ever Test players, he had been in a critical condition and had been placed in an induced coma.
Marsh represented Australia in 96 Test matches and 92 ODIs between 1970 and 1984. He scored 3633 Test runs and claimed 343 catches in his illustrious career and since retirement, has contributed to the game he loves as a coach, commentator and national selector.
Marsh had been in Bundaberg, Queensland, for an event organised by Bulls Masters, a non-profit that works with cricket professionals on charitable causes when he suffered the heart attack on February 25.
The cricket world is remembering a true giant of the sport.
Aussie cricket great Lisa Sthalekar wrote on Twitter: "So sad to hear the news of the passing of Rod Marsh. What a legend of a cricketer, a great bloke who made everyone feel welcome in this great game".
English commentator Alison Mitchell posted on Twitter: "Deep sadness for Rod Marsh RIP.
"Played his part in English cricket as well as Aus, when he headed up England's first ever National Academy, and was a selector. What a character, what a loss. A legend."
Sports writer Richard Hinds remembered Marsh as a cult hero.
"Champion cricketer and seventies icon. Haven't been many better behind the sticks," he posted on Twitter.
Cricket statistician Rick Eyre remembered Marsh for his famous character.
"One of Australian cricket's great personalities and our Test wicketkeeper from 1970 through to 1984. Condolences to all his family and his wide network of friends," he posted on Twitter.
The archetypal Aussie who left a lasting legacy in English cricket
Rod Marsh did not simply represent Australia in cricket but also in the public imagination. He was the archetypal Australian, stocky, gruff, rough, and tough on initial acquaintance, but he played fair and was ready to have a beer with anyone after a day's play.
"You cheating South African!" was a typical Marsh greeting, growled from behind the stumps, in this case at Allan Lamb when playing for his adopted England. The Nottinghamshire and England batsman Derek Randall walked out to bat in a Test, greeted Marsh the wicketkeeper, then asked him why he did not reply. "What do you think this is, a f------ garden party?" There will be no more Marshes, in the era of microphones placed inside the stumps.
If Marsh had been simply what he looked however - a typical Aussie - he would never have become England's first head coach. As such, he was extremely thoughtful, and contributed much to England becoming the equal of Australia for several years from 2005, although the gap - or gulf - has grown again since.
Sir Andrew Strauss was in the first intake of English academy players, sent to the Adelaide headquarters of Australia's academy because nowhere in England was suitable. The discipline was army-style under Marsh as head coach, but not just loads of fitness training and cricket.
"I have kept a diary since going to Adelaide with the inaugural Academy intake of 2001. We were 'encouraged' to do so by the head coach Rod Marsh, the former Australian wicketkeeper - and I use inverted commas because it was semi-compulsory."
It would be no exaggeration to say that diary - and the habit of clarity of thought and vision which it instilled in Strauss - has become the most formative influence on England's cricket over the last dozen years.
Marsh's interaction with Graeme Swann, another in that inaugural intake, was at a more basic level. On the day the players arrived in Adelaide, they were called together, introduced to Marsh, and heard that Robbie Williams was going to be in town. Whereupon, as Swann recalled in The Breaks are Off, "Rod, in his broad Western Australian accent, demanded: 'Who the f--- is Robbie Williams?'
"Now, to this day I don't know why I did it - I never will, and looking back it makes me laugh out loud even though I concede it shouldn't - but I just looked at him quizzically and in a mock Aussie drawl replied: 'He's a f------ singer, you ignorant c---!' You know when you've totally misread a situation?"
The point of this story is that Marsh did not bear a grudge, as lesser coaches would have, after losing face in front of their charges. After a few seasons, by when the England and Wales Cricket Board had built an academy in Loughborough, and by when Swann had matured somewhat, Marsh called him in, and told him he was the best spinner in county cricket. Swann apologised for the Williams comment, the pair made up, and Marsh "shook my hand, laughed and told me: 'Go and take some wickets!'"
Marsh continued as head coach of England's academy until September 2005, by when the Ashes had been finally regained from Australia and his job had largely been done. In that capacity he had also been appointed an England selector, which prompted a falling-out with the England coach Duncan Fletcher.
Marsh urged the case of Chris Read who, as Marsh was supremely qualified to judge, was the best wicketkeeper. Fletcher preferred Geraint Jones, as the better Test batsman, and Jones's vital runs in the 2005 series suggest the latter was right.
Marsh's world Test record for wicketkeepers was an integral part of his CV when the ECB poached him from Adelaide, where he had been the academy director from 1990 to 2001.
He had overtaken England's Alan Knott by making 355 dismissals in his 96 Tests from 1970-1 to 1983-4.
One of his nicknames was "Bacchus", not from his drinking capacity so much as the fact that the Australian team was once on a train which stopped at the outback town of Bacchus Marsh. Another nickname, not among his team-mates, was Iron Gloves, as his hands at the start of his Australian career were not the softest.
Herein lay Marsh's challenge. He had to keep wicket to Dennis Lillee, arguably Australia's finest fast bowler, possessed of outswing and steepling bounce; and to Jeff Thomson, arguably the fastest Australian bowler ever. Edges off apprehensive bats therefore flew his way in greater profusion than any wicketkeeper had known, and more quickly too, so there were many chances for glory and embarrassment. Marsh grew into the role, and extended the traditional span that keepers had covered, by engaging his strong legs and thighs to leap and dive.
Marsh set another world Test record by taking 95 catches off Lillee alone. Demonstratively too, the ball thrown triumphantly high, smiling beneath the extensive moustache. If he had the chance to effect a run-out, as when Geoffrey Boycott called Derek Randall for an impossible run in the Trent Bridge Test of 1977, Marsh would not tip off a bail daintily, he would demolish the stumps.
Lillee and Marsh, together with Thomson and Ian and Greg Chappell, may come together in the English mind's eye as typical Aussies, but Lillee in his autobiography, Menace, admits he and Marsh did not get on initially when growing up in Perth.
"When I first met Rod I was 17 and he was 19. He was a scruffy, overweight, beer-swilling intellectual, a pianist and a good singer… and I wasn't his choice of friend because I was too straight and didn't drink." Their relationship was "a slow burner" before it became very strong.
It was because Marsh was so Aussie that there was no reason to suspect him of match-fixing in 1981 when he and Lillee placed a bet on England to win the Headingley Test. The odds were 500-1, before Lord Botham launched his most amazing hitting, and they were not ones to resist a gamble. The England players knew what Marsh and Lillee had done; there was no subterfuge about it.
And when Australia were forced to chase a target of 130, Marsh and Lillee did not give their wickets away. When Marsh hooked Bob Willis, the ball was only a yard from going over Graham Dilley at fine-leg for six. When Lillee batted, he almost seized the game back from England, scoring 17 in a stand of 35 in only four overs, before England triumphed by 18 runs.
Australia's next game on their 1981 tour, another international too, illustrated Marsh's all-round abilities. Marsh was captaining Australia against Scotland, but not keeping wicket, in a limited-overs match. Scotland needed 14 off their last over, whereupon Marsh brought himself on and took three wickets in that one over without conceding a run.
Marsh's robust left-handed batting, usually at No 7, and packed with pulls and hooks, brought him 3,633 Test runs at an average of 26. He even scored 236 for Western Australia. He was picked as a specialist batsman for his state until his keeping improved, but Marsh had the determination to make sure it did.
Another record set by Marsh was for the number of beers drunk on the flight from Australia to England. Doug Walters had raised the bar to 44 cans on the 1977 tour. Marsh drank beer and rum copiously before the flight in 1981 took off, and as the plane reached Heathrow he was struggling, one short of the record, just finishing off the final can before the plane landed and he collapsed. If it was some kind of omen, he succeeded in postponing the outcome for more than 40 years.
- with The Daily Telegraph UK
