“C’mon Marnus, swing that f****** bat!” Went a loud cry from the stands at long-off on the morning of the second day’s play at Adelaide. Marnus had bravely battled through the previous evening, holding the fort under lights against the pink ball, arguably in the toughest conditions to bat, to stop Jasprit Bumrah and Co from effecting the damage they had wreaked in Perth. Without Marnus’s knock, Australia might well have struggled, as it could have got Travis Head that evening itself. Who knows what could have happened then? Yet, the Australian crowd wasn’t too chuffed with Marnus. The story of his life.
Of the recent players in the team, he is as “un-Australian” as they come. An Afrikaans South African whose family migrated to Australia when he was 10, so much about him can come across as alien to the local fans. The name, the looks, the fact that he couldn’t speak English for a while. His quirks—the non-stop chatter, the relentless fidgetiness, the cricket-tragic nerdiness, and hyper-energy, “weird” as Tim Paine used to call him— doesn’t help as well. But he has worked hard, honed his talent, and won them over when he became the ICC world’ No. 1 Test batman. But the speed bumps weren’t too far away from his golden run.
Just before this Indian series, he had scored a 90 in Christchurch in New Zealand. Yet, he faced the strongest criticism and heat from fans, media, and former Australian players after the Perth Test. There were calls to drop him.
Bharat Sundaresan, a cricket journalist, adio and TV broadcaster who has been living in Australia for the last six years, puts things in perspective about his friend ‘Marn’. “Usman Khawaja has spoken about how the Australian system treated him as an outsider in the initial years. It’s a bit similar with Marn. He is so different from the rest, not just with his quirkiness but with his background, that he definitely has puzzled the Australian fans over the years. Look, the demography of cricket fans in Australia is an ageing one – from 35 to 70,” he explains.”
“Who did they grow up watching? The Chappellis, Border, Lehmanns, the Waughs, and the rest. Who sets the narrative even today? The former cricketers who are all in the media. They all talk about this “Australian” hard way of playing. Never mind, that’s such a fluid concept that it has evolved. Country is changing, the cricket fans are perhaps still stuck in the past,” he says.
He draws the example of Adam Zampa. “He is another one that cops the heat; when the team’s national anthem is on, the camera zooms in on Zampa, and the fans go, ‘does he sing it? Why are his eyes closed and such rubbish? With Marnus, that’s never been an issue as he sings it the loudest!”
The issue escalates when Australia loses. “It’s only when Australia lose, he gets accused of the “carry on” after getting out or some of the things he says from short leg, which most times are cute and silly and not nasty. He gets pulled up for allegedly annoying his own teammates than he does the opposition. On radio, we have this text line where the listeners send comments, and invariably Marnus gets the strongest comments if he doesn’t perform,” he says.
Perfect group
In some ways, Marnus is lucky that he is playing in this era. With the likes of Steve Smith, almost as quirky if not more, and has Pat Cummins as captain and Andrew McDonald as coach, who replaced Justin Langer, reportedly on player’s will. In the recent times, even during this series, Cummins, who himself has copped criticism and labelled ‘Captain Woke’, has talked about “letting the players be themselves”, and expressing themselves as they wish to. It’s difficult to see Marnus not just fit but flourish in an earlier era. Even after Perth, Marnus would have known that all he has to do is to ignore the outside noise and get the runs. He doesn’t have to worry about what his team-mates think of him. Though a couple more failures might well have pressurised the selectors into making a move.
As all said and done, Marnus wasn’t scoring runs. He might have more than Smith and a couple others, but he was in the middle of a dry spell. It seemed as if he had shelved all his shots, and solely focussed on surviving. As he would do in the first innings in Perth with a 52-ball 2.
“There was a problem, no doubt,” says his long-standing personal batting coach Neil D’Costa. He had begun to sweat on how to bat, rather than playing them on instinct as he used to in prime. He would be instinctive and that instinct was driven by how can I score here, what’s my scoring shot here. That was fading a bit,” says Neil.
“Marnus loves batting, the biomechanics of it and how technique works. But he perhaps took it a touch far, ending up focusing too much on his end of the pitch. We had to rework a bit after Perth.” In the second innings, Marnus shouldered arms to a nip-backer from Jasprit Bumrah, was trapped lbw and triggered a collapse. Neil understood why he left it, though he would question him later. “That ball was on a 8.3m length and this is Australia. The ball would bounce over the stumps. That’s why he left it alone. But he still should have been playing it as the pitch had shown wear and tear – and it wasn’t always going to go over. That was a mistake coming from playing for survival rather than looking to be positive.”
After Perth, both would chat. Neil sent him a few batting videos from the past. “Incidentally, it was a few shots from his past knocks against India! Those were the videos of him playing the way I like, just saying this is you, lad! I am very proud of how he handled everything to be fair. But Pat Cummins certainly led the way. The boys know the standard expected because they are the standard.”
Neil wasn’t overly worried about how Marnus would handle the pressure of the criticism from former players and fans baying for his head. “I know what you mean: when he could have been a bit bitter, he wasn’t . Probably I was though!” says Neil. “But the reason I wasn’t too concerned about that aspect is because we have done tremendous work in this area! Part of my team is Alan Mantle who has mental skills training, and Marnus has worked a lot on him to get his head space sorted. Safe to say that he wasn’t performing and he knew he had to correct that; not fret about what others were saying.”
Always the same
“Did you notice one thing though in Perth or even in the first innings at Adelaide before he had scored that fifty? All the other roles required as a team-player, he played well: team support, fielding, bowling. He did not change, he was still smiling and greeting fans etc , very proud of his character. It’s great to be a great player but being a great person is the real goal right – and Marn is that. He might be annoying, but is a great human! He is also lucky that this team under Cummins, and the support staff, the coaches are all great. They encourage him to be himself. No one panicked. All the young fans at the stadium cheered for him.”
In Adelaide, Marnus did play more positively on the second morning after he had weathered the initial storm the previous evening. It’s not as if he has overcome all his troubles. Early on, there is still this tendency to be a touch stuck on the crease, trusting his hands to get him out of trouble. His hands move in all sorts of angles to stop the ball from hitting the pad. He has such a good eye that he is able to bring his bat in time. It’s his method, and he is just 30 and hand-eye reflexes are still good.
Perhaps the Indians, including Bumrah and Siraj, bowled a touch short and a tad outside off stump and didn’t make him play enough on that first evening in Adelaide. Undoubtedly, they would course-correct in Brisbane and come harder at him early on. It’s that phase where he can still be vulnerable. But then that’s his method and if he can take some confidence from the Adelaide fifty, the battle between him and Indians should be riveting. Never mind what the older Australian fans think of him.
There is this funny little scene from the Australian dressing room in the documentary Test. It’s an April Fools’ prank, played out by the former coach Justin Langer, and Marnus doesn’t realise it at the moment. In an in-camera game, Marnus picks Jacques Kallis as his favourite batsman. In the next shot, Langer walks across, takes Marnus aside, and says, “You got to be very careful. When you have got the Australian stuff on and you talk about Kallis and AB de Villiers and all that stuff. Boys aren’t going to be that pumped about it.”.
Marnus stiffens like a schoolboy, hands held behind his back, and says, “That was not my intention. So what do I do if they ask me that question?” And Langer says, “say Steve Smith is your hero, not Jacques Kallis. You just gotta be careful. This is going global.” Marnus shuffles uneasily before Langer says, “Marn, happy April Fools’ day, son!” He visibly relaxes and laughs, saying: “I was wondering what’s going on?!”
That scene still gets played out in real life whenever he doesn’t perform. But at 30, for a boy who knew that he wanted to be a cricketer for life when he was three, a boy who would watch cricket on the telly in full cricket gear with helmet and pads on, a man who absolutely loves this game, Marnus, his mentors and friends say, doesn’t worry about the outside noise.
I’m Manas Ranjan Sahoo: Founder of “Webtirety Software”. I’m a Full-time Software Professional and an aspiring entrepreneur, dedicated to growing this platform as large as possible. I love to Write Blogs on Software, Mobile applications, Web Technology, eCommerce, SEO, and about My experience with Life.
