Coming around: The evolution of Marcus Harris

Marcus Harris has learnt a few things about what it’s like to get the chop.

When it happened to him after the New Year's Test during the 2021-22 Ashes, it marked the fourth occasion he had lost his Australian spot in a career spanning 14 Tests. By then, Harris not only knew how to process his own disappointment but how to differentiate between various types of disappointment.

"When I got dropped from that Test in Sydney, I was disappointed, but I didn't feel like it was 'getting dropped and never playing for Australia again' disappointment," the 30-year-old tells cricket.com.au from Bristol, where he is playing for Gloucestershire in the early stages of the northern summer.

The irony and the frustration for Harris was that he had never felt more comfortable at international level. Those closest to him thought so, too; his own mother told him as much.

Her observation was based purely on her son’s demeanour. But Harris felt it at the crease, too. Only weeks before he was squeezed out following Usman Khawaja's sensational return at the SCG, Harris had underpinned Australia’s Ashes-clinching win with a performance many have simply forgotten.

Everyone recalls Scott Boland being the hero on debut, but Harris arguably deserved equal acclaim from Australia’s win at the MCG. On one of the most bowler-friendly surfaces produced for an Australian Test in recent memory, the left-hander made a game-high 76 and batted for four-and-a-half hours.

England's entire second innings lasted half as long, while only one batter from either team had survived for more than two hours for the whole Test. His performance came against an attack led by a bowler Harris rates as the best he has faced: Jimmy Anderson.

So with the adopted Victorian on the cusp of having another shot at Test cricket in the coming weeks, the question now is whether he can recapture the confidence that had begun bubbling to the surface.

"I probably can't answer that until I'm out there and playing," says Harris, whose chances of a Test recall depend on what path selectors choose with David Warner. "It was a good thing for my confidence to be able to go through a tough start to the series but then be able to come out the other side of it a bit.

"I felt like I was starting to find my feet, and then just didn't capitalise on a couple of good starts in Sydney. I definitely take confidence from that knowing that a) I can do it and b) do it against a very good attack, and similar to what they'll have in this series.

"But you don't really know until you play again."

While his underappreciated hand in Melbourne might have been the high-water mark for a man who has passed 70 three times in Tests but never gotten to triple-figures, Harris, fairly or unfairly, is still remembered more for what happened in the previous Ashes campaign, in the UK in 2019.

Called in mid-series to partner Warner, Harris was terrorised by Stuart Broad and Jofra Archer from around the wicket. He was not alone in finding their angle and seam movement nigh-on impossible to contend with – Australia's lefties collectively averaged 21.81 in the series – though his failure to pass 20 in any of his six innings saw him, like Warner, finish the series with a sub-10 batting average.

There have been two main factors in Harris convincing selectors, and maybe himself, that he deserves another chance.

The first has been a commitment to tightening his technique against right-arm bowlers coming around the wicket to him.

"I think in 2019 I'd never played much over in England. My technique was set for Australian wickets where I'd try to smack the ball back down the ground a bit more," he says. "I was definitely more open in my stance."

To the naked eye, the changes are minute. But for Harris they have helped him feel like he is better equipped to handle the around-the-wicket angle.

Chris Rogers, another left-handed opener who took over as coach of Victoria in 2020, has helped him with his alignment. The changes have made a big impact, but took time to bed down. At one stage, Harris felt he got too side on, closing off his body and limiting his stroke-play.

That made him vulnerable in other ways. When he earnt a one-off Test opportunity to play India during the 2020-21 summer, he was out to Shardul Thakur bowling over the wicket in both innings, caught at square leg on a skewed glance and then caught behind fending at a short ball.

But by the time Harris was recalled the following summer to face England, he had struck a comfortable balance. The difference in his stance may look minor – his feet still appear to be pointed in roughly the same direction – but the angle of his shoulders and the starting point of his bat path is clearly tighter.

"I've had to tinker with it over the years, but I think I've found a happy medium of still being able to access the leg-side and being able to cover off-stump a bit more," he says.

"I've worked on it with 'Diva' (Australia batting coach, Michael di Venuto) as well – as a left-hander trying not to fall over, especially when they're bowling around the wicket, you don't want your head falling outside the line (of the stumps).

"(I'm) always trying to keep my head going back down the wicket – that's a constant thing I've got to work on, try to line things up a bit better and give yourself the best chance of succeeding."

The second factor in Harris's improvement is simply quantity of game time.

Since the end of the 2019 Ashes, he has played in 60 first-class matches. Among his Test teammates, only Marnus Labuschagne (65) has featured in more, with two-thirds of Harris's matches coming in the United Kingdom, where he is currently playing in his third consecutive County Championship season.

Between his stints in the Test team and playing for Victoria in the Marsh Sheffield Shield, he is now in the midst of his sixth consecutive cricket 'season'.

"If I'm at home it's like I've got ants in my pants – I have to get going and do something," laughs Harris, who nonetheless found time to get married to his partner Cat in March in Melbourne. "I'm doing what I want to do."

For Leicestershire (where he played in 2021) and Gloucestershire (2022 and 2023), Harris has averaged 47.34 and added seven first-class tons to the 18 he has made across his career in Australia.

The fact a large chunk of his runs in the UK have come against right-arm fast bowlers from around the wicket suggests he has indeed given himself the best chance to succeed when he links up with Australia’s World Test Championship final and Ashes squad later this month.

"In first-class cricket they just emulate what they see in Test cricket, so everyone just bowls around the wicket (to me)," he says. "Then they might try over the wicket for a little bit, but then they come back around.

"It's something I've had to deal with for the last four years and something I've put a lot of work into. I'm better prepared for it than I used to be."

Harris is of course well aware of the big step up from county to Test cricket, and that Broad, Anderson, Archer and co. await him.

"Jimmy Anderson is probably the best bowler I've ever faced. His consistency and skill. The bloke is 40 and he's still the best bowler in the world," he says of the bowler he has also come up against in county cricket and who has since slipped to second in the ICC’s Test bowling rankings.

"They're all good bowlers. But, it sounds weird, what I struggle with in county cricket is coming up against guys I've never seen before. You watch a bit of footage but you've never faced it. It’s unknown, whereas coming into a Test series you know what you're expecting.

"When they're bowling around the wicket with that wobble seam and they don’t know which way it's nipping, I've got to try to combat it also not knowing which way it's going to go. Because they bowl from there so much now, I'm still going to get out when they bowl around the wicket.

"It's a matter of if I'm on 100, or if I'm on nothing."

Australians in the County Championship 

Durham: Matthew Kuhnemann

Essex: Daniel Sams (T20s only)

Glamorgan: Marnus Labuschagne, Michael Neser

Gloucestershire: Marcus Harris

Hampshire: Nathan Ellis, Ben McDermott (both T20s only)

Kent: Wes Agar, Kane Richardson (T20s only)

Leicestershire: Peter Handscomb (April and May)

Northamptonshire: Chris Tremain (April 6-23), Jordan Buckinhgam (May 1-21), Sam Whiteman (until August), Chris Lynn (T20s), Andrew Tye (T20s)

Somerset: Peter Siddle (until July), Cameron Bancroft (until May 7)

Surrey: Sean Abbott (until July), Dan Worrall (UK passport)

Sussex: Nathan McAndrew (until July), Steve Smith (May 4-21)

Warwickshire: Glenn Maxwell (T20s only)

Yorkshire: Mickey Edwards (UK passport)