RIP Rodney Marsh

Rodney Marsh has died aged 74 after suffering a heart attack last week. Photograph: Adrian Murrell/Getty Images

The cricket world is in mourning after the death of the Australian great Rod Marsh, aged 74. The former wicketkeeper suffered a heart attack in Queensland last week and was placed in an induced coma before being transferred to Adelaide, where he died on Friday.

Marsh played the first of his 96 Tests for Australia in 1970 and came to be regarded as one of his country’s finest players, thanks to a combination of athleticism behind the stumps and often explosive batting.

His partnership with the fast bowler Dennis Lillee became part of the game’s folklore and the line “caught Marsh, bowled Lillee” became a common entry on international scorecards throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.

He called time on his Test career in 1984, hanging up his gloves with what was then a world record of 355 dismissals – 95 off the bowling of Lillee – and 3,633 runs to his name.

After retiring as a player, he oversaw the nation’s cricket academy and later became a selector. He spent time in England as the director of the England and Wales Cricket Board’s national academy during a four-year spell between 2001 and 2005, and also oversaw the International Cricket Council’s inaugural world coaching academy in Dubai.

In 2009 he was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame, 24 years after being elected to the Sport Australia Hall of Fame. He also became a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1982.

Australia’s current Test captain, Pat Cummins, led the tributes from the world of cricket and beyond, calling Marsh a “colossal figure” of the Australian game.

“I, along with countless other people in Australia, grew up hearing the stories of him as a fearless and tough cricketer, but his swashbuckling batting and his brilliance behind the stumps over more than a decade made him one of the all-time greats of our sport, not just in Australia, but globally,” Cummins said.

“When I think of Rod I think of a generous and larger-than-life character who always had a life-loving, positive and relaxed outlook, and his passing leaves a massive void in the Australian cricket community.”

Adam Gilchrist, one of Marsh’s successors behind the stumps for Australia, said he was “shattered” by the news. “I thought he was invincible. He was my absolute idol and hero and inspiration as to why I pursued what I did. The impact he had on my life is profound.”

The former Test player Mark Waugh tweeted: “So incredibly sad to hear of the passing of Rod (Bacchus) Marsh an absolute icon of Aust cricket. Had the pleasure of working with Rod for a number of years as a selector and you wouldn’t meet a more honest, down to earth, kind hearted person. RIP.”

The women’s national team wicketkeeper, Alyssa Healy, said it was a “sad day” while the former captain Lisa Sthalekar referred to Marsh as “a legend of a cricketer, a great bloke who made everyone feel welcome in this great game”.

The former player and commentator Kerry O’Keeffe said it was the “saddest of days”. “Outstanding service to Australian cricket…great team mate…mention of his name makes me smile…brilliant dig,” he tweeted.

“His saying, ‘cricket is a simple game made complicated’ still resonates with me,” wrote the former men’s international David Hussey. “Rod will be missed, thoughts are with his family.”

The English commentator Alison Mitchell posted: “Deep sadness for Rod Marsh RIP. Played his part in English cricket as well as Aus, when he headed up England’s first ever National Academy, and was a selector. What a character, what a loss. A legend.”

Australia’s Test players are expected to wear black armbands when they get their series in Pakistan under way later on Friday. Cummins had said on Thursday the condition of Marsh, who had “really good relationships” with a number of players, had been playing on the their minds in the buildup to the match in Rawalpindi.

Cricket Australia’s chairman, Lachlan Henderson, said the line “caught Marsh, bowled Lillee” had achieved “iconic status” in the game and Marsh would be remembered for the way he played the game.

“Rod also made an enormous contribution to the game by identifying, coaching and mentoring many future stars in his various roles as coach and director at cricket academies in Australia and other cricket playing nations,” Henderson added.

The ICC called him a “true legend of the game” while Australia’s prime minister also paid tribute to the man he said was his favourite player.

“He was part of one of the most exciting eras in Australian and world cricket,” Scott Morrison said. “He will be remembered as one of Australia’s greatest ever Test cricket players.”

Rod Marsh sweeps England bowler Geoff Miller during an Ashes Test in 1982. Marsh has died aged 74 after suffering a heart attack on 24 February 2022. Photograph: Adrian Murrell/Getty Images

During his career he set the tone for energy and effort while his work as a commentator, coach, selector and administrator leaves a strong legacy

Rodney Marsh was a popular and talismanic figure in Australian cricket for over 50 years – as a player, commentator, coach, selector and administrator. With his walrus moustache, bandaged street fighter hands and grizzled wit, he came to personify an era of hairy, thirsty, newly professional modern players.

As Test wicketkeeper from 1971 to 1984, Marsh was Australia’s field marshal, setting the tone for energy and effort, and upping the ante when required, be it with a dry-yet-devastating word in a batsman’s ear or an encrypted gesture to a fast bowler at the top of his run-up. Although it hurt him deeply to never captain his country, that tactical nous and feel for the game and its players later made him a notable success as an academy coach around the world.

Marsh’s great-grandfather, Dan, had been sent to Australia in 1868 on a manslaughter charge after a late-night scuffle in Derby, UK, resulted in a man being shot. Despite a coroner finding no intent, Dan Marsh (after whom Rod named his son, later a Tasmanian captain) served five years in Fremantle Prison before establishing himself as a pillar of the Geraldton community.

Like his ancestor, Rodney Marsh’s destiny was always in his hands. “Mum wanted me to be a pianist,” he would reflect. “But I wanted to be in the game.”

Marsh first put on wicketkeeping gear for Armadale Under-16s, aged eight. Even then tough as old boots (he didn’t own shoes until he was 10), he had honed his game in fierce backyard “Tests” against brother Graham (a future golf star) with father Ken urging them on. Both boys were state cricketers but Rod rose faster, captaining Western Australia schoolboys at 13 and scoring 104 on state debut in 1968-69 against a West Indies attack of Hall, Griffiths and Sobers.

Despite an appetite for the local crayfish and Swan Lager, Marsh was made Test keeper in 1970-71. It was a controversial decision. Marsh was a batter first, keeper second. But a shrewd panel helmed by Sir Donald Bradman knew the days of sleight-of-hand and stumpings were waning. The 1970s were to be an era of pace. So began the career of Marsh, the original batter-keeper allrounder and blueprint for Gilchrist, Dhoni, Boucher and Sangakkara.

After some early fumbles, critics dubbed Marsh “Iron Gloves”. But he showed his steel by blasting 92 not out in his fourth Test, a then-record score for an Australian keeper. Moreover, by not grumbling about captain Bill Lawry’s declaration so close to a century, Marsh established his “team-first” trademark, a code that earned him undying loyalty from teammates and love from fans.

England’s Geoff Boycott tries to sweep as Marsh looks on Cricket during an Ashes Test at the SCG in 1971. Photograph: PA Images

In the final Test of that first series, Marsh had caught John Hampshire off the bowling of another young debutante, one Dennis Lillee. It was the first of 95 dismissals “caught Marsh, bowled Lillee” in the 13 years to come. The pair had been mates since 1966 when Marsh was a trainee teacher with the University club and Lillee was a tearaway with rivals Perth. “I know from the way he runs up; the angle and speed, where he hits the crease, where the ball will go.”

English fans got their first look at Marsh when he pouched five catches and pillaged 91 runs, 60 of them in boundaries in 1972. He ended the series with 23 victims, a new record for Ashes Tests. Back home he carted his highest score, 236 for Western Australia, then hit 118 for Australia against Pakistan making Marsh the first Australian keeper to make a Test ton. He was to notch two more, 132 against New Zealand in 1973-74 and a match-winning 110 in the 1977 Centenary Test at the MCG, an innings he later rated his greatest.

Ever staunch, Marsh joined his mates in joining World Series Cricket in 1978. It doubled his income (still one-tenth what Graham earned on the PGA tour) and his marketability, as Marsh put his name to books and endorsements (the strangest bore the tag: “What does Rod Marsh do with his Vaseline?”)

But it came at a cost for wife Roslyn and their sons. “The early days of WSC, it was really hard on the family… there were some nasty telephone calls.” It also, Marsh believed, cost him the captaincy. That hurt him – and the team. Kim Hughes never won over the old war dogs Lillee and Marsh and their dissent was evident in the 500-1 wager they took under his captaincy in 1981, a sour dividend when Ian Botham won England the unwinnable at Headingley.

Marsh talks with Shane Watson at Lord’s in 2015. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images

Like many of the era, Marsh was partial to a “malt sandwich” or three… or 43 (the flight to England in 1977) or 45 (en route to the 1983 World Cup). Such excesses may have impacted his batting – he averaged 33 in the first half of his career, 19 in the second – but his keeping got better in leaps and bounds.

Marsh’s goalkeeper dives and sky scraping catches, raucous appeals and grinning celebrations made for pyrotechnic TV. He was still able to cut short balls, drive half volleys and splinter bats too. In an 1980-81 ODI, he famously plundered three sixes, two fours and 26 runs from Lance Cairns’ final over.

Marsh was also a gatekeeper to baggy green culture and a key-master of its conscience. It was he who first co-opted Henry Lawson’s 1887 poem, Flag of the Southern Cross, into the Australian team’s victory song, albeit with a very Marsh modification (“Australia, you little beauty” became “you f*ckin bewdy!”) And it was Marsh crossing his arms and shaking his head at captain Greg Chappell, mouthing “Don’t do it” when the underarm ball rolled down in 1981.

To the end he was defiant. “I’ll give those young blokes something to chase,” Marsh said in 1984, his final season. He did – 355 Test dismissals. And as founding director of both the Australian (1990-2001) and England academies (2001-05), he also gave young players something – and someone – to revere.

CREDIT: the guardian