Mitch Marsh keeps emotions in check with special World Cup hundred before semifinals

Having had to rush to Australia midway through the tournament after the passing of his grandfather, a returning Marsh made a whirlwind ton against Bangladesh in Pune on Saturday.

Mitchell Marsh celebrates his centuryagainst Bangladesh in Pune on Saturday. | Photo Credit: ANI

Mitchell Marsh has had an emotional fortnight. Having had to rush to Australia midway through the tournament after the passing of his grandfather, Ross, Marsh rejoined the squad.

But the allrounder kept his emotions in check after scoring his second hundred of the Men’s World Cup - also Australia’s third-highest individual score in the tournament history. Asked whether this was the most emotional of his three ODI hundreds, Marsh said he was battling the conditions more than anything else.

“It’s always a great honour to score 100, but I was pretty cooked, to be honest. I was just starting to cramp at that stage, so I was trying to keep my heart rate low and not exert too much energy. So, yeah, this one meant just as much as any other hundred that I have ever made,” Marsh said after the match.

Marsh was chuffed with how Australia has turned the tables around to set up a semifinal date against South Africa after losing the first two games.

“We are really excited. You look back to the start of the World Cup and nine games seem like a long way away,” he said. “With the amount of improvement with all cricket teams around the world there is been not one easy game so to get to the semifinals is great. We are very excited about what lies ahead and the challenge that’s ahead of us.”

Najmul Hossain Shanto, Bangladesh’s stand-in captain, reflected on its batting unit’s poor show right through the tournament. Shanto stressed the need to stick to a set batting order.

“To be honest, it is better if we don’t (shuffle the batting order. But sometimes you have to do (shuffle) against certain teams, according to their strengths. But the less we do it, (the better it is). There was a lot of (shuffling) in the World Cup but it was done with a positive intent. If we don’t do it at all, even better,” Shanto said.

Having batted at No. 3, Shanto also accepted the failure of the top order as a reason for collective failure. “I don’t want to talk about individual players. We didn’t do well as a team. The top-order batters had more opportunities,” Shanto said.

“If we had big scores from the top, we could have been in better positions. We are hopeful they will get big scores in the future.”