Marsh’s unbeaten 177 takes Australia to easy win
With India so often at the receiving end against Australia, until at least a decade ago, the home crowds have become habituated to not being in the Aussie corner. It was difficult to say if the 19,000 strong Pune crowd had turned all Australian, but they had certainly lapped up all the yellow jerseys on sale outside the stadium.
Australia’s Mitchell Marsh celebrates after scoring a century (100 runs) during the 2023 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup one-day international (ODI) match vs Bangladesh(AFP)
Due to a lack of options, all of them had picked up ‘Warner 31’ but given how the match panned out, they should have surely sold more of Mitchell Marsh’s No 8s. The tall all-rounder, who goes by the nickname of Bison, gave the Saturday crowd many reasons to cheer with his towering innings of 177 (132b,17×4,9×6).
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Warner, in prolific form, all through the World Cup, stroked a business-as-usual half century. The Warner-March opening partnership separated by Travis Head’s entry, made maximum impact, this time for the 2nd wicket with their 120-run stand to set up Australia’s 8-wicket win.
Australia, however, did not learn anything new about their game from this inconsequential tie before the semi-final. The five-time title holders bowled first under the afternoon sun, perhaps to throw their pacers a challenge to pick up their powerplay game. Having third worst returns in the tournament so far, they again went wicketless as Bangladesh raced to 62/0 in the first ten.
On a pitch so true that any out-of-form batter would find form again, no Bangladeshi batter was truly able to get going. Australian pacers tried to use the heavy ball and occasionally succeeded. That’s how Sean Abott, playing in place of the rested Mitchell Starc got the aggressive Tanzid Hasan (36) out. Litton Das (36) and stand-in skipper Najmul Shanto (45) flattered to deceive. Young Towhid Hridoy 74 (79b, 5×4, 6×2) played a promising innings, but he couldn’t press the accelerator.
Yet another tight spell (10-0-32-2) from Adam Zampa, took him to top of the wicket-takers list (22) and restricted Bangladesh to 306. Although it was their highest total of the tournament, at the innings break it didn’t feel like it would be enough against the might of the Australian batting. Marsh gave a resounding demonstration.
Marsh had told his team-mates when he went away last week for a family bereavement, that he would return to win the Cup. With his smashing innings, he showed that he was keen to keep the word.
The right-hander’s great strength with the horizontal bat shots is well known. But with the Bangladeshi bowling lacking teeth and nothing in the wicket, he chose to go ariel, but straight most of the time. He would deny Bangladesh spinners with his big booming off-drives and punish every short ball as if they were a waste of time.
“It was great to be able to get a hundred in a winning team. Especially after the negative 50 with the ball (his bowling figures 4-0-48-0), it was nice to give some back,” he told reporters.
The Marsh-Steve Smith 3rd wicket partnership 175* (135) was almost chanceless except a close run-out chance at the non-striker’s end which Marsh managed to survive. It took the Australians home in 44.4 overs. Smith 63 *(64b) showed that he is back among the runs and gives the Australian touring selectors a happy headache when Glenn Maxwell returns for the semi-finals against South Africa.
South Africa and Australia finished 2nd and 3rd on the table with 14 points. Bangladesh’s two wins in the tournament may prove to be enough for a Champions Trophy 2025 berth, unless Netherlands can upset India on Sunday.
