Indian pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah was the ongoing nightmare for the Australian batters in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy of 2024-25, taking 32 wickets in five Tests. And it’s as if the sorrow of facing him has continued for Mitchell Marsh, who shared a funny tale about an unforeseen struggle he’s having, whilst doing backyard cricket with his four-year-old nephew. In an interview with cricket.com.au, Marsh said his nephew had taken on Bumrah’s action, joking that it saw the continuation of the nightmare for Marsh of facing the talisman of India’s pace attack.
“Little Ted aimed for the goal; we played backyard cricket the other day. He came in with Bumrah’s style, and the nightmare continued,” Marsh said with a laugh.
He was a nightmare for the Australians to face during the ending Border-Gavaskar Trophy. It was a 3-1 scoreline that made the trophy lose to Australia for the very first time since 2014, averting a hat trick of home series losses to India, but it doesn’t nearly illustrate just how much razor-fight Bumrah put for India all by himself.
32 wickets in 5 matches at a healthy average of 13.06, with 3 five-wicket hauls, and best match figures of 6/76 – confirming him as the leading wicket-taker in this series – he has smashed records after records in this five-match series, becoming the Indian with the most five-wicket-hauls in SENA, and outdoing spin legend Bishan Singh Bedi to garner the most wickets by an Indian in an away series.
The winner of last year’s Allan Border Medal for Australian Player of the Year in all formats, Marsh didn’t perform well during his series against India, scoring only 73 runs in four matches and seven innings at an average of 10.42, with a best score of 47. This was complemented by just three wickets taken at an average of 46.33.
Marsh had a poor Test series last year, scoring only 293 runs at an average of 18.86 and just two half-centuries in nine Tests and 15 innings. He could take only five wickets because of injuries that had limited his workload. He was omitted from the last Test in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy to allow for the introduction of Beau Webster to the side.
The lanky allrounder, popularly known for his humor and jokes, cracked a joke on the Australian support he felt “before December”, when he went into a slump.
It was capped by the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in particular with a very good performance by the whole team, especially not having me in the side,” he said quoting WWOS.
“Pre-December, I felt so much love from it,” said Marsh.