NEWS
Follow UsA lot of focus in the lead-up to the day-night Test in Adelaide has surrounded Mitchell Marsh’s fitness. The all-rounder, who has had his fair share of injuries, has been clouded with yet another bout of injury, which could prevent him from bowling altogether in the Adelaide Test.
That puts Australia in a lot of trouble, considering that they have already lost Cameron Green to injury, which shook up the shape of the setup. Marsh pulled up sore after 17 overs in Perth but is almost confirmed to take part as a specialist batter, considering his impact in the middle order.
Marsh might have failed in the first innings but put up a strong show in the second, falling on 47. Australia’s wicketkeeper Alex Carey was hopeful that Marsh could pull up right and be ready for the day-night Test.
"I think he'll be right," Alex Carey said of Marsh. "I haven't heard otherwise. His batting has been fantastic for us since he's come back into this team, and his bowling again, he took some handy wickets. So hopefully he's right and ready to go."
Since 2023, it has been Australia’s middle order who have played an aggressive brand of cricket (SR of 59), scoring nearly 600 boundaries, an approach that is quite different from their top order, who have soaked up the pressure. Carey opened up on that approach, stating that the troika of Travis Head, Marsh and Carey have a ‘different way of tackling’.
"I feel like for myself, Trav, Mitch, we play differently to those top four, and we try to go out there with strong intent, whereas the top four can bat all day - and have done it before - and really grind teams into the ground," Carey said. "I think that's the style, as you know, [for] the middle order but there's opportunities as well to absorb the pressure if it comes our way."
Australia’s shocking defeat in Perth has already caused a landslide opinion change, with people now questioning whether their batting unit could withstand the pressure of the Indian pace unit. But Carey believes that it is just an extreme reaction.
"It's quite a big reaction externally for one Test loss," he said. "Internally, we don't feel that. We didn't play the way we would have liked to have played, but we know over four, five Test matches, [if] we keep rocking up and playing our style at cricket we will have the success. We've had that success to call upon [and] the method does work. We're calm internally and we're excited to get back out and play and play a better style of cricket."
The second of the five-match Test series starts on December 6 (Friday) in Adelaide.
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