Cricket: Hard Australian shows a soft spot for England

Some of his former team-mates refer to him as a "bloody Pom", but that hasn't bothered Rod Marsh, who is stepping down as director of England's cricket academy.

The end of his hugely successful four-year tenure, during which he has overseen the construction of a marvellous training facility at Loughborough University, will enable the more blinkered Aussies to embrace reassuring old certainties.

They never quite came to terms with the spectacle of one of Australia's most macho cricketers (whose tally of 45 "tinnies" on the journey to England was Australian cricket's in-flight beer consumption record until David Boon broke it) helping heave English cricket into the 21st century. So it will be good to have him back where he belongs. You can't toss another shrimp on the barbie on a dull day in Leicestershire.

Marsh has always been unconcerned by the indignation in some Australian circles - and in some English ones, too - that greeted his appointment by the England and Wales Cricket Board. It intensified when he was made a test selector. But neither full-blooded indignation nor good-natured ribbing ever came close to putting him off his stride.

"I don't listen to it," he said. "If I get it from my mates then I give back as good as I get, don't worry about that. It shouldn't even be a talking point. If people don't realise what a challenge it has been to work here for four years, to help get the game going better in England, then it's their problem, not mine. It has been a wonderful experience for me."

The fruits of his labours these past four years are ripening under the South African sun.

Nobody understands the science of fast bowling better than the man who remains half of the legend "c Marsh b Lillee", that lethal combination which accounted for 95 test wickets - still a world record.

Moreover, Marsh's 355 test dismissals included no fewer than 343 catches. Only 12 were stumpings. So when he talks about fast bowling it's important to listen, and in Steve Harmison he sees a man who could join the all-time greats.

"It is really up to him how much he wants it, and I have told him that. He is fantastic, and has such a lot of talent, although he could be a lot better than he is.

"He's No 1 in the world but he is not as fit or as strong as he could be. But he has a rare talent, there's no doubt about that. There aren't many, if any, who can bowl as fast as he does for as long as he does, getting as steep a bounce as he does.

"To play him when he's getting that steep bounce, there's no fun attached to that, I can tell you. It's bloody difficult to score, in fact it's bloody difficult to survive. And if he's got a [slip] cordon that's catching well he'll get wickets on any surface."

I asked Marsh whether he had achieved everything he set out to when he arrived with a brief to do for English cricket what, as pioneering director of the academy in Adelaide, he had done for the game Downunder.

"I don't think you ever achieve everything you hope to," he said. "You'd get pretty bored with life if you did. But some progress has been made, definitely. We're in far better shape now."

I had to suppress a smile on hearing that first person plural: we. But Marsh is still as Australian as Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo.

When it comes to this year's Ashes series, I ventured, he will surely be passionate in support of his compatriots?

"No," he said shortly, and I had to remind myself that Skippy wasn't played by a kangaroo at all, but a wallaby. Things are not always as certain as you'd expect.

"I'm not passionate about Australia winning the Ashes. I'm passionate about the guys who've been to the academy in Australia, about them doing well, but I'm equally passionate about the English guys who've been to the academy here doing well, because I've spent so much time with them. And I take a huge interest in Indian cricket, too, because I've set up an academy there. More than anything I hope the Ashes is a great series."

To return to the set-up at Loughborough, which is Marsh's favourite topic of conversation, he pronounces it "the envy of the cricketing world".

If he says it is, then it is. Marsh is not a man given to hyperbole; indeed, the term "plain-speaking" might have been coined just for him. This, after all, is still the man who features in one of the great Derek Randall anecdotes.

When Randall arrived at the crease in a test way back when, he said breezily, "How you doing, Marshy?" No comment. "Not talking today, Marshy?" chirped Randall. "What do you think this is," grunted Marsh, "a ******* garden party?"

I also recall what he said when I first met him, shortly after he'd been hired by the ECB. I invited him, one of the greatest of wicketkeepers, to assess the abilities of our own Alec Stewart. And his big brown eyes filled with mirth.

"He should certainly change his technique," he said. "I can't believe he faces cover, then jumps back into line just before the bowler bowls. I find that highly amusing."

Future England wicketkeepers will have such quirks removed at the national academy, if all goes to plan. But Marsh thinks that the standard of cricket coaching generally, in this country and elsewhere, leaves plenty to be desired.

"There is no doubt that cricket has got better since I played. But there is too much jargon talked by a lot of coaches. There is a lot more bullshit talked than I would want to hear if I were a player. And that is at all levels.

"You can't become a great player without a firm grasp of the basics, but unfortunately people don't teach the basics any more. I don't know why. Maybe they think that's too low a level for them.

"Whatever, the result is that a lot of these kids are never taught that they need to watch the cricket ball. Greg Chappell once got seven ducks in a row when he was captain of Australia and the country's premier batsman, and he admitted that he wasn't watching the ball. He had to go back to basics and if that lesson was important enough for him to learn, it should be good enough for kids of 10 and 11."

Clearly, no batsman will emerge from the national academy without a firm grasp of those basics.

I asked him the 64,000 Australian-dollar question. How far are England from supplanting his 11 fellow countrymen as the best team in the world?

"Well, Australia are still pretty bloody good. They keep getting themselves into difficult situations, then delivering a hiding to the opposition. It's pretty impressive, especially after losing both Waughs.

"It's not as though there are youngsters coming in. Michael Clarke is the only youngster, and he's a hell of an exciting player, but the average age of the team is going up.

"As for England, spin is the one big area of concern. There aren't enough fast bowlers either, but England is better off than most countries. There aren't enough quality batsmen, but there are some very good young guys waiting in the wings.

"There are not enough spinners, fullstop. But steps are being taken. And I guess you can say that spinners don't win too many test matches. It's fast bowlers who do that."

Marsh is notoriously the man who once wrote off all English fast bowlers as "pie-chuckers". He now thinks that England has a greater depth of fast-bowling talent than any other cricketing nation.

"I reckon you need 10 of the required quality to be able to step into the breach in case of injuries," he said. "There's Matthew Hoggard, James Anderson, Harmison, Andrew Flintoff, Simon Jones, Sajid Mahmood, Jon Lewis, Martin Saggers - plus two good Under-19s in [Liam] Plunkett and [David] Stiff - so that's eight we've got, not to mention some of the older guys."

He added that he would miss all those young men, and his other proteges, a great deal when he returned to Australia for good in September. The more so as he has no other cricketing project lined up, after 15 years of working with many of the most promising young players in the world. He will also, "except for the bloody motorways", miss England in general.

I asked him whether he had learned anything new and surprising about England these past few years.

"The biggest surprise was that I didn't realise how big football was here. I'd heard that it was big, but it's much bigger than I expected. I don't understand that. I could maybe understand it if England were No 1 in the world, but they're not even close.

"What defeats me is how England could lose to Australia at football [3-1 at Upton Park, in a friendly in February 2003]. That's like England beating Australia at Aussie Rules, which is not going to happen.

"But the point is that cricket has got to be really well promoted here to make inroads. Guys like Flintoff and Harmison do no harm at all in that regard. But what will help most is if England were to beat Australia in the Ashes. That would give the game an enormous, enormous boost."

Indeed it would. In fact, I might be blowing my didgeridoo up entirely the wrong creek here, but I fancy that a narrow England victory in the Ashes is the result that would please Marsh more than anything. But don't tell Ian Chappell.

Rodney Marsh

* Wicketkeeper

* 1970-1984

* 96 tests

* 343 catches

* 12 stumpings

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