Marsh's irresistible form raises provocative Ashes question

Last Tuesday in Mount Maunganui, 24 hours out from the first game of Australia's three-match T20I series against New Zealand, T20I skipper Mitchell Marsh was asked by a New Zealand journalist whether his mind was on the Ashes at all in terms of trying to force his way back into the Test team.

- Mitchell Marsh

“Ha. No,” Marsh said.

He giggled again as the press pack paused, perhaps taken aback by the emphatic answer, and no more questions were posed on any topic.

Five days later he leaves New Zealand with two player of the match awards from the only two completed games, a player of the series award and the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy, after scores of 85 off 43 and 103 not out from 52. The latter was one of his finest for Australia, single-handedly guiding them home on a tricky surface where he looked like he was playing a different sport to every other batter in the game. His first T20I century saw him join Shane Watson, Glenn Maxwell, David Warner, and Josh Inglis as the only Australian men with international centuries in all three forms.

In his last seven international innings dating back to the T20I series against South Africa in August he has scores of 54, 88, 18, 100, 85, 9* and 103* and has batted as well as he ever has in international cricket, especially against the pace collection of Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Nandre Burger, Matt Henry, Jacob Duffy, Kyle Jamieson and Ben Sears who have troubled some of Australia's Test batters in the same games.

Despite what Marsh says publicly about a possible Test return, which is understood to be in keeping with what he has said privately, his form has done nothing to quell the whispers that have been floating around Australian cricket that Marsh could be called upon as a "break glass in case of emergency" option for the Ashes.

It sounds far-fetched, and merely the notion will enrage a large swathe of Australian fans who believe Marsh has had more than enough chances at Test level. But the whispers are real.

Chairman of selectors George Bailey had sowed the seeds as far back as April.

"I don't necessarily think that his red-ball career is over," Bailey said when Australia's 2025-26 contract list was announced.