Shaun Marsh

Shaun Marsh

Personal information
Full name	Shaun Edward Marsh
Born	9 July 1983 (age 29) Narrogin, Western Australia, Australia
Nickname	SOS (Son of Swampy)
Height	1.84 m (6 ft 0 in)
Batting style	Left-hand opening bat
Bowling style	Slow left-arm orthodox
Role	Opening batsman
Relations	GR Marsh (father) MR Marsh (brother) M Marsh (sister) SM Ervine (brother-in-law)
International information
National side	Australia
Test debut (cap 422)	8 September 2011 v Sri Lanka
Last Test	24 January 2012 v India
ODI debut (cap 165)	24 June 2008 v West Indies
Last ODI	28 October 2011 v South Africa
ODI shirt no.	9
Domestic team information
Years	Team
2000–present	Western Australia (squad no. 20)
2008–present	Kings XI Punjab (squad no. 14)
2011–present	Perth Scorchers
Career statistics
Competition	Test	ODI	T20I	FC
Matches	7	36	8	69
Runs scored	301	1,274	108	4,089
Batting average	27.36	36.40	13.50	37.51
100s/50s	1/1	2/8	–/–	7/23
Top score	141	112	29	166*
Balls bowled	–	–	–	174
Wickets	–	–	–	2
Bowling average	–	–	–	65.50
5 wickets in innings	–	–	–	0
10 wickets in match	–	–	–	0
Best bowling	–	–	–	2/20
Catches/stumpings	4/–	8/–	1/–	56/–
Source: Cricinfo, 4 February 2012

Shaun Edward Marsh (born 9 July 1983) is an Australian cricketer who plays for the Western Warriors in Australian domestic cricket and has represented Australia at Test, One Day International and Twenty20 International levels. The left-handed opening batsman is the son of former Test cricketer Geoff Marsh.

Junior career

After representing Western Australia at Under 17 and Under 19 level, Marsh represented Australia at both the 1999–2000 and 2001–02 ICC Under-19 World Cups. In the 1999–2000 tournament, held in Sri Lanka, he was the second highest run scorer for Australia behind Shane Watson, and other notable teammates included played alongside Michael Clarke, Nathan Hauritz and Mitchell Johnson.^[1] At the 2001–02 tournament in New Zealand, which Australia won, he scored the fourth most runs for the tournament, with the captain of the Australian side, Cameron White being the leading run scorer.^[2]
During this time, Marsh made his first-class cricket debut in 2000–01, against South Australia at the WACA Ground in March 2001. He played as a middle order batsman, and played this final three games of the season, before continuing to represent both the Australian Under 19 side and the Australian Cricket Academy throughout 2001 in the lead-up to the World Cup in New Zealand in January to February 2002.

Central Lancashire League

Marsh was signed by Walsden Cricket Club for the 2004 season after they received many recommendations from former professionals about the "next best thing to come out of Australia since Steve Waugh. The recommendations turned out to be correct as Marsh had a prolific season with the bat. Marsh scored 1139 runs at an average of 56.95 and was also used as a bowler during his time at Walsden taking 46 wickets at an average of 17.76. Marsh was also an integral part of Walsden's Wood Cup winning team during this season.
Marsh follows in a long line of professionals to represent their country, two of which were Trevor Chappell and Andrew Bichel.

Domestic career

Marsh batting for WA against Victoria in the 2009-10 KFC Twenty20 Big Bash.

Marsh batting for WA in the 2007-08 KFC Twenty20 Big Bash final.

In October 2002, Marsh was named to play for Western Australia against the touring English XI in a two day practice match (not classified as first-class) prior to the 2002–03 Ashes. Marsh top scored for the match with 92 runs against an English bowling attack consisting of Matthew Hoggard, Stephen Harmison, Andy Caddick and Ashley Giles.^[3] He was not selected for the three-day match held soon after, but was selected to make his List A debut for the Warriors in an ING Cup match against South Australian Redbacks in November 2002.^[4] Marsh would play in nine ING Cup games and three Pura Cup during the 2002–03 season and he made his maiden first-class hundred against a NSW side featuring Steve and Mark Waugh in 2003.^[5]
Over the next few years, he cemented his position in the Warriors middle order, averaging over 35 in first class cricket in 2004–05 and 2005–06.^[6] He was named in the Australia-A side for a mid-year tournament in Cairns in July 2006. After a relatively poor 2006–07 season, he returned to top form in 2007–08 in all forms of the game. In first-class cricket, he made his highest career score of 166 not out (as part of a 268 run 4th-wicket partnership with Luke Pomersbach and averaged over 60 runs per completed innings.^[6] In the 2007–08 Ford Ranger Cup 50-over competition, Marsh made his debut century and was the Warriors' top run scorer.^[7] In Twenty20 cricket, he was the competition's leading run scorer with the highest average and the highest individual score.^[8]
Partway through the 2007–08 season, with the retirement of Justin Langer and the move of Chris Rogers to the Victorian Bushrangers, Marsh switched batting positions to become an opening batsman like his father Geoff.^[9] At the end of the season, he was named the Lawrie Sawle Medallist for being the best player in the Western Australian state cricket team for the 2007–08 season.^[10] He was highly sought after for the Big Bash League due to being regarded as one of the top domestic Twenty20 players in the world. He ultimately chose to stay in WA and play for the Perth Scorchers. After missing the first game due to a troublesome back, which played up in the recent Australian tour of South Africa, he played in the second match against the Melbourne Renegades and made 99* stating his case to join the test team for the Boxing Day Test against India and missed the next few games.
He has signed to play for Glamorgan in the 2012 Friends Life T20 competition.

Indian Premier League career

Good form with the Western Warriors was rewarded with a contract in the 2008 Indian Premier League, where he opened the batting for the Kings XI Punjab.^[11] Despite missing the opening four games of the tournament, Marsh scored the most runs in the league stage of tournament, including a century in the final league stage match against the Rajasthan Royals. He received the orange cap for scoring most runs in the 2008 IPL tournament.^[12][13] Shaun Marsh was chosen in the inaugural IPL dream team chosen by the cricketing website Cricinfo along with cricket superstars Sanath Jayasuriya, Kumar Sangakkara, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne as well as other young talents like Rohit Sharma, Gautam Gambhir and Yusuf Pathan.^[14]

International career

A graph of Shaun Marsh's ODI performance. The bars show the runs scored in each innings (blue bars indicate innings where he has been dismissed, orange bars indicate where he has remained not out). The red line shows the career batting average after each innings.

His excellent form during the 2007–08 season lead to Marsh being given a Cricket Australia Contract and being called up to the Australian Cricket tour of the West Indies.^[15]
He made his debut for Australia in June 2008 in a Twenty20 game against the West Indies alongside fellow West Australian debutant, Luke Ronchi. Opening the batting with Ronchi, they compiled an opening partnership of 57 runs from the first 6 overs, with Marsh being dismissed soon after for 29 runs from 22 balls, including 2 sixes and a four.^[16] He made a memorable One Day International debut a few days later, top scoring for the match with 81 runs from 97 balls and winning the man of the match award.^[17] With the recent retirements of two of Australia's longest-serving ODI opening batsmen in Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden, Marsh has been able to claim one of the opening batsmen positions for the 2008–09 season.^[18] In the South African tour of Australia, Marsh performed well in the opening two ODI matches, top-scoring in both matches and winning the man of the match award in the second game. He has scored more than 50 in five of his 10 matches,^[19] and scored his first century in the 5th ODI against India at Hyderabad on 5 November 2009.
Marsh was included in the Test cricket squad for Australia's tour of India in 2008, but was not selected for a match.^[20]
On 21 January 2011, in an ODI match against England at Hobart, Marsh scored his second ODI century (110) in a record ninth wicket partnership with Doug Bollinger. Australia went on to win the match by 46 runs, and Marsh was named player of the match.^[21][22]
In July 2011, Marsh was selected for the Australian Test Squad for the tour to Sri Lanka.^[23] Marsh made his Test cricket debut against Sri Lanka on 8 September 2011, when he became the 19th Australian to score a century on debut by scoring 141, where he shared a 258-run 4th wicket partnership with Michael Hussey (142).^[24] He played one Test in Australia's following tour of South Africa, before missing three Tests with a back injury.^[25] He played all four Tests in Australia's 2011-12 home series against India, but performed poorly, scoring only 17 runs at an average of 2.67, including three ducks; after continuing to show poor form at domestic level afterwards, he was dropped from the Test team for Australia's next series.^[26]

Personal life

Marsh was suspended for two matches by the WACA in November 2007 for breaking the team rules by drinking alcohol to excess with Luke Pomersbach.^[27]
Shaun's younger brother Mitchell,^[28] is also predicted to follow in his brother and father's footsteps and has been rookie contracted to the Western Warriors for the 2008–09 season. At the age of 16 he had already represented Western Australia at both Under-17 and Under-19 level and also broke the record for most runs in the Perth schools competition, the Darlot Cup, where he scored 739 runs at an average of 105.57.