‘Didn’t your father teach you…?’: Gavaskar questions Marsh after Australia beat Sri Lanka, gets smashing reply
It took them three matches but Australia re finally off the mark in World Cup 2023. The five-time World Champions defeated Sri Lanka by five wickets to register their first win of the tournament. After triggering a collapse that saw Sri Lanka go from 125/0 to 209 all out, Mitchell Marsh got Australia off the blocks smashing a half-century off 39 balls, Australia’s first of this World Cup and although he was run out for 51, his quickfire innings held the innings together despite the scorecard reading 24/2 with David Warner and Steve Smith’s dismissals in quick succession.
Sunil Gavaskar and Mitchell Marsh in a playful mood after the match.(Screengrab/Twitter)
After the match, Marsh and former India captain Sunil Gavaskar were involved in a fun conversation around the Australia all-rounder’s explosive batting, Mitch’s batting is a stark contrast to his father Geoff Marsh, whose strike-rate was 55.33 across 117 ODIs as compared to his son’s 93.85. Gavaskar, who played plenty alongside Geoff during his days as an active cricketer, couldn’t help but observe the different approach of the father-son duo.
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“Didn’t your ever teach you to play like this? (gestures with a defensive shot) Because all you’re doing is BANG, BANG, BANG,” said Gavaskar after the match, but quickly received a hilarious reply from Marsh. “I’m just making up for his poor strike-rates”.
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The win against Sri Lanka was much-needed one for Australia, who will now seek to hit that momentum required to reach the World Cup semifinal. If they manage to go the distance, Mitchell Marsh and Geoff Marsh would become the first father-son duo to win a World Cup – Marsh Sr. won the 1987 edition in India. Mitch himself was pleased with his fifty, and looked set for a big one before a brilliant throw from Chamika Karunaratne ran him out.
“The boys are calling me Usain Bolt. Felt like one of those dreams where you’re running back for a run but you can’t run. But yeah, it was a really good day for us. We came into this game under a little bit of pressure after a slow start but it was a complete performance. There was plenty of hurt. We came here with high expectations of wanting to get off to a good start. Truth is, we played against some really good sides and were a little off the mark. In these big tournaments, you can’t afford to and probably today hopefully is a stepping stone in the right direction for us,” Marsh added.
