Growing up in the 1970’s there was an aura about the Ashes Test Matches.
The England side of that era appeared to my young eyes to reflect an England of an era I had only read about. An era of fair play, and one in which gentlemen still played the game and were expected to behave and carry themselves in a certain manner. The Australians were the antithesis of this.
With their bushy moustaches and longer hair than their English counterparts they had a wild and aggressive edge about them. Ian Chappell was their uncompromising captain and in his armoury he had the pace duo of Jeff Thomson and Dennis Lillee. If they weren’t scary enough there was Rod Marsh behind the stumps chirping away. The television executives of the day were no doubt very relieved that there was no such thing as stump microphones back then!
Cricket at the time probably did not appreciate how fortunate the game was to have two wicketkeepers of such differing techniques, but of such outstanding talent in Rod Marsh and Alan Knott. Debate would rage as to which was the best. Often it would depend on which hemisphere you came from
Incredibly their careers were very similar. Marsh played 96 Test matches and Knott 95. Knott made his Test debut in 1967, Marsh in 1970. Knott scored five test centuries and 30 half centuries for a batting average of 32.75. Marsh scored three test hundreds and 16 half centuries for an average of 26.51; but all would be memorable for the swashbuckling style in which he accumulated those runs. Marsh earned his nickname “Iron Gloves” following a poor wicketkeeping display on debut against England, but was quick to admit that he was underprepared for the step up, and paid homage to Knott, saying that he improved by watching his English counterpart.
As a young boy at that time the Australians were very much a team I wanted to see beaten. However even to my young impressionable eyes I could see and appreciate the talent they had in their side, and Greg Chappell was the batsman I wanted to emulate. Although I kept that quiet!
The Centenary Test in Melbourne in 1977 was the game in which I changed my views on Rod Marsh. I was away at boarding school. This may seem crazy in today’s world, but we were not allowed radios or any other such electronic equipment. There was one radio in the sixth form and those in the sixth form were only allowed to listen at certain times. I was cricket obsessed. I was definitely not a morning person, but during the Centenary Test I would wake up early and sneak downstairs before we were supposed to be up, and go into the sixth form and listen to the broadcast of this historic game with the radio down low so as not to reveal my presence. After all I was not yet in the sixth form. I was breaking any number of rules. I was enthralled with what I was listening to. Apart from Derek Randall’s magnificent innings and Dennis Lillee’s bowling the abiding memory was the performance of Rod Marsh. He scored an unbeaten 110 in Australia’s second innings which ultimately would assure them a victory. I remember learning that incredibly this was the first Test hundred scored by an Australian wicketkeeper against England. I was not aware that in that match he also passed Wally Grout’s Australian wicket-keeping record of 187 Test dismissals.
It was in that match that Marsh did something I never believed an Australian cricketer would ever do. It was the final day of the match and Derek Randall had secured his first Test hundred and was playing so well he looked capable of winning the match for England, as long as he was well supported at the other end. With his personal score on 161, Randall was given out to a catch by Marsh. The game appeared lost with that dismissal. However Marsh indicated that he didn’t take the ball cleanly, and the Australians recalled the batsman. Randall would eventually be dismissed for 174, and just as they had 100 years earlier England would fall 45 runs short.
From that day on Rod Marsh was elevated to another level in my opinion. With the game there to be won, he put the spirit of the game first. Many questioned whether he would have done this in any other Test match, and that he had only done this because it was the Centenary Test. That was irrelevant, he had done it. It was a magnificent gesture; one that video referral has in someways robbed the game of today.
Just over ten years later I would move to Australia. Two years later someone I knew through work called and told me to meet them at the Moon and Sixpence. I asked why, but they refused to tell me why. I told my boss I was heading out. When I arrived there he was sat with Rod Marsh. It was a fantastic afternoon, in which I admit I was drinking one pint to their two. I had to leave my car in the car park overnight!
In later years we were fortunate to also have Rod Marsh come on Not The Footy Show as a guest, and he was wonderful.
While his career was one to remember his coaching once he retired from playing was outstanding. He was a coach at the Australian Cricket Academy in Adelaide from its inception and was its director from 1990 to 2001. Many of the generation that dominated World cricket in the 1990’s and early 2000’s came through on his watch. Marsh then became the Director of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) national academy from October 2001 to September 2005. During his time at the helm England went from being a mediocre team to being a team that was challenging Australia to be the best team in Test cricket. In 2005, they regained the Ashes after 16 years with a 2–1 win. Marsh played a key role in that success.
Sadly the powers that be in England made a few decisions that he did not agree with and ultimately paid a price.
Rod Marsh will be remembered by cricket fans across the globe for all manner of reasons, his drinking feats on the plane to London, or the 95 times in Test cricket that the scorebook read a batsman had been dismissed ‘caught Marsh bowled Lillee.’ Others will remember his time in World Series Cricket, or how on the 1981 tour of England, he had 23 dismissals to become the first wicketkeeper to take 100 dismissals in Ashes Tests. Not only that he broke Alan Knott’s then world record for the most dismissals in 22 fewer Tests and passed 3000 runs in Test cricket. Few who saw him play will ever forget his incredible acrobatics behind the stumps, his raucous appeals and the height he threw the ball in the air once an appeal was upheld.
Rod Marsh was an entertainer, and a fierce competitor. He was also a perfectionist in that throughout his career he demanded the best of himself and his team mates, something he would carry over into his coaching. He was also one of the best in his era, some would say in any era. Looking back it was a privilege to see him play, and an absolute honour to meet him.
His passing today has not surprisingly seen an outpouring of emotion, for in many ways he epitomised being Australian.
May he rest in peace but his memory never fade.
