Marsh gets defensive in bid for success

In his quest to reclaim the Test allrounder berth that looked to have slipped from his grasp just months ago, Mitchell Marsh has found the need to channel his inner boring.

Left out of the starting XI for the watershed loss to South Africa at Hobart last November, and then jettisoned from the squad in the purge that followed, Marsh was told upon exile that he remained very much part of Australia's planning for the upcoming Qantas Tour of India.

After all, his batting was far from his team's worst during the humiliating 0-3 Test whitewash against Sri Lanka last year where he was his team's second-highest runs scorer behind skipper Steve Smith.

And his capacity to gain reverse swing from a ball scuffed and degraded by the abrasive wicket blocks of Asian Test venues made him as valuable a bowling option as any spinner with claims to allrounder status.

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But the power game for which the 25-year-old has been renowned since he debuted for his country as a strongly-built teenager had to undergo fundamental change given his Test batting average from 19 appearances was barely 23.

Albeit at a brisk scoring rate of 53.89 runs per 100 deliveries faced in Tests, which was comparable to the game's greatest-ever Sir Donald Bradman (54.58) at the same point of his unparalleled career.

So in the time spent away from the scrutiny and the suffocating pressure of Test team incumbency, Marsh worked not on honing his God-given talent for striking the ball hard and often but on the antithetical component of his game that came not quite so naturally.

His defensive strokes.

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For as former Test captain now national selector Greg Chappell would famously note, the secret to scoring big Test runs is to have the wherewithal  to stay at the crease long enough to be able to compile them.

And that means being able to block more reliably than you can blast.

"It's a big part of playing well over here, and it's something all our batsmen have worked on," Marsh said ahead of Australia's main training session for the second Test against India starting at Bengaluru on Saturday.

"Against a turning ball, if you can back your defence then attacking the ball that's there will be much better.

"In these conditions you've got to earn the right to attack and that's by having a solid defence.

"That's what I've been working on."

Even while galvanising his non-scoring options at home in Perth as he recovered from a shoulder injury that kept him out of the VB ODI Series against Pakistan, and then in Dubai where the Australians held their pre-India training camp, it's likely he could not have envisaged a pitch to challenge batting skills as sorely as the track for the opening Test in Pune.

A dry, crumbling surface on which even the India batters were made to look like novices at times.

And where Marsh's first innings since being recalled to the Test team – four runs from 18 balls faced in almost 25 minutes of batting which he privately rated "the toughest four I've ever made" – represented the second-most laborious knock of his Test career to date.

Come the second innings, he was able to soak up 76 balls in more than an hour at the crease in conditions even more challenging than he had experienced on day one, during which he added an invaluable 56 with his skipper Smith and managed four boundaries and a six as his confidence grew.

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"On the wicket like in Pune you had to have a good defence to survive, and for me if the ball was up I was going to take it on, certainly in the second innings," Marsh said today.

"That's what I did, and it's certainly a different game plan.

"Even though I made only 30 being out in the middle for 80 balls certainly gave me a lot of confidence.

"As a batting unit over here, you've got to be able to make big scores and bat for a long period of time.

"In Australia or other parts of the world, you can be a lot more attacking.

"Here it's about batting long periods of time and to do that you've got to have a good defence because you're always going to get balls to score (off) and the longer you bat in these conditions the easy it gets.

"That's the game plan."

Australia's plan has long been to develop and grow Marsh, a former national under-19 captain, into the long-term Test allrounder for which they have so openly yearned for decades.

The thankless, hugely difficult dual role that Shane Watson filled to polarising reviews before Marsh was handed the baton.

One that doubles as a lightning rod for relentless criticism in the brutal age of social media, where both Watson (to whom Marsh regularly turns for counsel and technical tips) and his protégé have been relentlessly targeted.

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"I try not to look too much into it," Marsh smiled when asked if he was aware of the merciless critiques posted by folks with considerably less cricket acumen.

"I wouldn't have too much confidence if I read all the comments on Facebook, but that's part and parcel of playing cricket for Australia at the top level.

"People are always entitled to their opinion, that's fine by me. It doesn't stress me out.

"I used to read a lot of it, then I had 10 innings where I didn't get over 30 – I didn't have much to read then, so I stopped reading it."

Test Squads

India (for first two Tests): Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Ravichandaran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Karun Nair, Jayant Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Abhinav Mukund, Hardik Pandya.

Australia: Steve Smith (c), David Warner (vc), Ashton Agar, Jackson Bird, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Shaun Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Stephen O'Keefe, Matthew Renshaw, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, Matthew Wade

Australia's schedule in India

Feb 17-19, Tour match v India A, Mumbai

Feb 23-27, First Test: Australia won by 333 runs, Pune

Mar 4-8, Second Test, Bengaluru

Mar 16-20, Third Test, Ranchi

Mar 25-29, Fourth Test, Dharamsala