Obituaries Australia

Early this Saturday morning the news arrived that arguably Australia’s greatest spin bowler had passed away. That news, on top of the Rod Marsh tragedy, rocked the cricket community worldwide.

Marsh’s death at 74 seemed too early, but his had been a lengthy dig of competition and contribution. Warne’s death, at just 52, is completely unexpected and more tragic for the roads cut off that he had yet to travel.

He gave the impression of being 10-foot tall and bulletproof. Warnie was cricket’s complete showman; never afraid to embellish a huge spinning leg-break or understate his prey’s inabilities. But he could back up the lip with the zip.

His death made the front page of English newspapers, and that says a lot about a player from the despised opposition.

It was a slow start, however. Warnie was expelled from the National Cricket Academy. But it worked: he became the greatest, whose contributions to a dynasty that lasted 14 years was immeasurable.

There is only one nomination for “ball of the century”, and it will be replayed well into the next couple of centuries. There can only be one player who served a ban for taking his mother’s diuretic pills. There can only be one player who accompanied “Elizabeth” (as he introduced her to me, not “Liz”) Hurley. There can only be one player who snuck out of the dressing room to have a ciggie then took cash for endorsing a nicotine replacement. There was only one bowler who could land his “flipper” every time and be too good for the raft of batsmen who actually knew what was coming.

It is not quite right to call him an archetypal Australian larrikin; he was his own unique larrikin, borrowing bits perhaps from Marsh, Doug Walters, Chuck Fleetwood-Smith, Merv Hughes and mixing in the modern addendums of social media and cosmetic alterations.

Through it all, though, he was a seriously good all-round cricketer with a competitive streak wider than the MCG.

When Marsh was chosen to replace Brian Taber as the Australian Test wicketkeeper, there was a gallon of hue and bucket of cry from the established cricket fraternity. Taber had been installed in 1966 and had proven to be a more than competent gloveman, while his batting could best described as “handy lower order”. Marsh had been making runs for a Western Australia team that was about to begin a climb from the Sheffield Shield cellar to a dynasty while wicketkeeping on the true and high bouncing surface at the WACA.

When Marsh played at the SCG in Taber’s stead, he was booed and dropped some straightforward chances: the clanging epithet “Iron Gloves” was anointed by the Sydney hill crowd, and it stuck. What didn’t stick was the actual clanging. He became one of the finest Australian keepers standing up to the sticks.

During the 1970s, my cricket heroes ranged from Neil Hawke and Alan Connolly to Dennis Lillee and “Iron Gloves”, who would become “Bacchus”, after the central Victorian town. In the back yard, I sprinted in like Lillee and any snick, once caught by Taber (born in my home town of Wagga Wagga) was now pouched by Marsh.

Towards the second half of the 1970s, World Series Cricket took the superstars from the establishment, and they were designated “never to play again” for their country. Steve Rixon, John Maclean and Kevin Wright were given their chances guarding the wickets in the baggy green and did a fine job, but the rupture was healed and many of the superstars returned to normal transmission.

I was incredibly fortunate to play the first home Test following the resurrection, and in that Test match were several of the players who I had revered from the afar via ABC radio and black-and-white television broadcasts. I had collected their bubble gum cards, copied their bowling actions, echoed their appeals and played the backyard Test matches with all the zeal that I saw or heard across the airwaves, and now I was sharing the same dressing room.

Because of the WSC era, and the first Test against New Zealand being early in the season, I had never played a Sheffield Shield game against a Sandgroper team with Lillee or Marsh. They both proved to be welcoming teammates, even though I was an “establishment” rookie. Rod encouraged without condescension, treating me as a fresh player and an equal. When I refused his offer of a beer, as I was a teetotaller, he didn’t badger or belittle me as many in the drinking culture of the era would, he simply bought me an orange juice and refused to let me buy a round, ever.

It was clear from the first practice session that he wanted the best from me, whatever that took, but the incentives from him would be all carrot and never stick. I appreciated this immensely, as this was not necessarily the method of other superstars.

Rod quickly picked up the complexities of my bowling release. In his final Test at the SCG I had lost my swing and sent down off-cutters rather than outswingers, chewing up the new ball unintentionally. He spotted my cockeyed wrist and conveyed an instruction from his keeping squat by a motion of his gloved hand. An outswinger reappeared next delivery. Simple really.

Although “caught Marsh bowled Lillee” has its own entry in the Australian cricket lexicon, I was proud to convert my backyard automatic wickie successes to the real thing where “caught Marsh bowled Lawson” is a record for an Ashes series.

My favourite Marsh snare would be Geoff Miller caught down the leg side at the Gabba in 1982-83. For a stout man with legs that would support multiple pianos, he could fly.

After his international retirement, Marsh continued on in club cricket as an off-spinner, but perhaps his greatest disappointment as a bowler came in the Faisalabad Test match of 1980. Chasing Australia’s 612, Pakistan were 1-300 or so and, with the match winding inexorably to a draw, Rod challenged Greg Chappell to give him a bowl. Chappell volunteered to keep wickets and quickly clanged a straightforward stumping chance from a distraught Rodney’s straighter one. Forgiveness took decades.

Rod Marsh was a carrier of the flame. He served cricket at many levels, he was as hard as the Harvey River clay that makes the WACA and he was true to the game. Those who played beside him were fortunate men indeed.

Two fiercely burning stars have been extinguished, but I can envisage the afterlife scene: Marsh guarding the stumps, moustache glistening, gloves blocking all but a sliver of light, on high alert for a stumping chance as Warne hesitates, deliberately of course, forcing the batsman to consider options that don’t exist as he plots the arc and spin. Pity the poor batters who venture from their crease: these two never miss.