Panicked, but “small ground, fast outfield gave time to catch up”
Mitchell Marsh crawled through much of the powerplay, unable to find the fluency that has marked his resurgent post pandemic. At one stage, he dug himself into a dot-ball hole and could muster 15 runs off just 15 balls. But with a six off Harshit Rana, the 16th ball he faced, he unshackled himself and launched an onslaught the audience would recall for a long time.
Off the next 33 balls, he shellacked 66 runs. He admitted that he did panic. “It (14 off 14) was an absolute panic situation for me. I was just trying to get a read on the wicket. It’s a small ground with a fast outfield so there’s always time to catch up,” he explained to the host broadcasters during the innings breaks.
Aiden Markram’s blitz (47 off 28) from the other end afforded him some wriggle room. Often the South African walked down and told him not to worry about the scoring rate. “I have formed a beautiful relationship with him. Played a lot against him for South Africa, but we’ve formed a good bond. We were just trying to play good, strong cricket shots,” he revealed his chemry with Markram.
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Similarly, he has forged an association with Pooran, the pair occupying the first and second spot on the run-scoring charts. The pair had been involved in three half-century associations this IPL but the most violent was stitched against KKR (71 off 31 balls). “Being on the same team, I feel a great connection with him as a bloke and as someone who I’m going to hopefully bat with a lot,” he had earlier said.
The quick-fire ensured that the total exceeded 200. “To be honest after the first few overs I thought maybe 180-190 would be par but as the ball got older it started to come on nicer and we’re blessed to have Nicky Pooran on our side,” he said.
After years of erratic performance, Marsh seemed to have cracked the consency code in IPL. In five innings (265 and counting) he has already surpassed his best haul in the tournament ( 251 in 2022). “I’m just trying to prepare as well as I can for every game so I can walk out to the middle and have fun. Got a lot of trust in the players behind me to go out there and go hard,” he said.
