Mitchell Marsh, Delhi Capitals peak at the right time – Firstcricket News, Firstpost

Mitchell Marsh found himself walking out to bat at the earliest possible opportunity when Delhi Capitals took on Punjab Kings at the DY Patil Stadium on May 16. He was pencilled in at No.3, the position he has batted for the Capitals all through IPL 2022, and one ball into the match, he had to make his way to the middle.

Mitchell Marsh and Sarfaraz Khan stiched a crucial partnership after the early wicket of David Warner. Sportzpics for IPL

Consider the circumstances he had to walk into. The Capitals had lost David Warner to the first ball of the match. Warner, their best, most in-form, most reliable batter. Gone first ball in a game that was must-win to keep their playoff hopes realistic. Facing up to a team who had just thumped Royal Challengers Bangalore by 54 runs, and with the Capitals’ own record in IPL 2022 being mercurial enough that they hadn’t yet won two matches in a row. And they were still without a not-yet-recovered Prithvi Shaw, which meant losing Warner was doubly dire.

Consider Marsh’s own circumstances. Brought up on the bounciest of pitches in Perth, he had a finely crafted game against pace bowling, and an equally underwhelming record against spin – at least till a couple of years ago. Then he started to figure out how to play spin in the subcontinent, had a breakout T20 World Cup where he starred in the final, and arrived for the IPL, finally ready to shine in cricket’s best, and most prestigious, franchise tournament. Except, he got Covid shortly after coming and had to sit out.

He had been able to play one game after landing, which netted him 14 struggling runs from 24 balls. When Covid struck after that, the isolation must have been felt in every sense of the word for Marsh. What the Capitals did though, was what any IPL franchise with basics in place would do: they kept the faith in Marsh. They recognised that one innings does not a player make, especially not when Marsh was coming off a season in which he had blasted runs for Australia in UAE and the Perth Scorchers in Australia.

Marsh repaid that faith in spades, first stringing together useful innings from No.3 and then hitting 89 off 62 balls against Rajasthan Royals, a dominant match-winning hand against a bowling attack that had quality in pace and spin.

So, although Marsh was walking into the most unfavourable start possible for the Capitals, he was walking in after having reinforced that the strides he had made towards being a batter with a more complete game were firm. In new opener Sarfaraz Khan, Marsh had the perfect ally. Marsh himself fired the first salvo by creaming two sixes against Kagiso Rabada in the second over the game, but after that, Sarfaraz started finding the gaps inventively, and Marsh could ease off, with a view to batting deep.

“Get as many as I can in the powerplay, before it starts turning!” he laughed, when asked about his batting plan by the host broadcaster, after the match. “I think in the last, sort of 18 months, I’ve had that mentality in the powerplay. I thought it was a really good partnership with Sarfaraz. He played some amazing shots. Would have been nice to get out of the powerplay (only) one down. Then we probably could have kept going, but our innings was sort of stop-start, stop-start, wickets.”

What Marsh was looking for, was partnerships. He got a few of them, but not nearly enough to push the Capitals’ total into the formidable territory. “It’s just about getting a partnership going. We probably weren’t able to quite do that through our middle overs tonight,” Marsh said. “And that doesn’t allow you to get to those 180 scores. It’s just about whoever comes in, tries to build that partnership, even if it’s 15 or 20 runs, just change the momentum.”

But Marsh had the skill and nous to adjust to the evolving match situation, and while the team’s innings may not have gone the way he had envisaged – he thought they had “left a couple” of run-outs there after they ended on 159 for 7 – Marsh’s own plan worked out just fine. He helmed the innings, falling only in the 19th over after having come in second ball. In between the bouts of calm, some forced by the bowling and some by the team circumstance, he attacked judiciously too, eventually ending up with 63 off 48. The strike-rate might appear only so-so, but no batter who faced at least 20 balls scored as quickly as Marsh did. As Marsh would say, “You can never judge a wicket until both teams bat on it.”

Marsh also referenced the Capitals’ up-and-down tournament, where they’ve got two wins in a row for the first time when the league phase is in its final week, but have still done well enough in between to be fourth on the points table right now.

“It’s our first back-to-back win of our season,” Marsh said. “We spoke about that today. We’ve been stop-start, but long tournaments like this, it’s about peaking at the right time.”

The Capitals might be gathering steam to peak at the right time. For Marsh, he’s been on a personal peak for the past year, and doesn’t look like slowing down anytime soon.

Saurabh Somani has been a cricket journalist since 2009, having worked with Cricbuzz, Wisden India and ESPNCricinfo. He tweets @saurabh_42

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