NEWS
MATCH REPORTS
DIARY
OTHER SPORTS
SLIDE SHOW
PEOPLE
ARCHIVES

The Rediff Interview/Geoff Marsh

"I don't think India depends too much on Sachin"

Geoffrey Robert 'Swampy' Marsh was one of those cricketers in the Australian mould -- tough, determined, unyielding, yet never given to anything that, to use the hoary cliche, wasn't quite cricket.

An opening batsman known more for his concentration and temperament than for flamboyant strokeplay, Marsh was Allan Border's understudy during the resurgent years, when the team won the Reliance World Cup in 1987.

During his playing career, he was involved in two durable opening partnerships -- the first with David Boon, the second with current Aussie skipper Mark Taylor. In fact, Marsh and Taylor were involved in a stand ot 329 for the first wicket at Trent Bridge in 1989 -- the highest in Tests between the two countries.

But perhaps the biggest indicator of his value to the side came when the national selectors dropped him to make way for Michael Slater. Allan Border promptly threatened to resign if 'Swampy' wasn't reinstated forthwith.

He then went on to become coach of the Australian national team, and his most famous hour perhaps came last month when Australia recorded its first series triumph on Pakistan soil in 4 decades.

In India along with Australia's one day captain Steve Waugh to receive the Ceat Award for Team of the Year, Marsh took time off to talk to Faisal Shariff about matters cricketing. Excerpts:

Geoff, a series win against Pakistan and now the team of the year award -- which of the two is the more satisfying?

Without doubt the series win over Pakistan, but you see this whole thing is inter-related. If we hadn’t won the series in Pakistan, we wouldn’t have won the Ceat Team of the Year award. It’s like these jigsaw puzzles that one has to solve, you keep putting the pieces in their places and hope that the picture that comes of it is the right one.

We play as a team, a unit and we knew that to win in the sub-continent we have to score runs by the ton. As for awards, they are always a matter of joy because it’s an acknowledgement of the hard work and effort you put into your game.

Would the infighting within the Pakistan team, and the betting scandal, have impacted on that side's performance do you think?

Look, we don’t play by who our opponents are, or what problems they face. We in fact don’t think of the opposition at all. We look at them as individuals and work out our strategy regarding each one of them. If they had problems, too bad, but I would not want to take the credit away from my blokes who played so well.

Everyone played their part well -- Mark got us off to great starts, Darren Lehman scored a 98 in his first Test, Langer kept getting good scores, so did Michael Slater. Mark towards the end of the series got a good hundred. And of course Steve won us the series with his 157 in the first Test. So all the guys batted well.

The bowlers bowled well too, Stuart McGill didn’t let us down, Colin Miller mixed it up well, I think Damien Fleming bowled real well. And of course McGrath bowled his heart out. I think he is amongst the three top fast bowlers in the world today. So you see all the guys contributed. From batsman number one to number seven, they all got good scores, and that is what you need in the sub-continent to even think of victory, tall scores.

So you would say that had McGrath played in India earlier this year, the result of that series could have been different?

Well, maybe yes. He would have got us early breakthroughs, and the whole course of the series could have changed. But all in all, I don’t want to take credit away from the Indians. They played some brilliant cricket and were the better side on that tour.

Also, on the India tour, I feel that our batsmen didn't get enough runs. In fact, if you look at the series against India, and the one now against Pakistan, in retrospect, you will find that the batsmen didn't get enough against India, whereas they scored very well against Pakistan, and that made the eventual difference to the outcome.

Tell us about that famous evening when Mark Taylor scored his 334...

Well, Mark came to the dressing room, acknowledged the applause for his feat, then went to the physio’s room and had a nice massage. He was damn excited -- he spoke to his mom, his dad, his wife and kid. Then he spoke to some of the players individually, and then decided that he would not bat the next day.

You know, opionion was divided within the team, some players wanted him to bat on the next day, for at least 20 minutes, and declare after the world record was broken. But the bottomline is, we don't play for individual records, the team is always put first, so he decided that he would not bat the next day.

Mark is a man with class, more importantly he is a team man. And winning the Test match was the priority and for that we would have to bowl Pakistan out twice in three days. Which of course didn't happen in the end because it was a beautiful wicket and the Pakis also piled up a big score.

To go off at a tangent, the dropping of Ian Healy from the one day squad seems to make little sense to us here, he has a wonderful record in both forms of the game...

Well you’re right, Ian is a world class keeper and a good batsman. But Adam (Gilchrist) was included ahead of Ian plainly because he gives a thrust to the scoring rate and also allows us the comfort of including an all-rounder at number seven, which helps us create the right balance in the team. Its pretty unfortunate that it had to happen at the expense of Ian, there is no denying he is in a league of his own.

And while on team selection, wouldn't Stuart McGill, who was doing very well in Pakistan, have been a better choice for the Wills Cup in Dhaka, ahead of Gavin Robertson?

Well, we don’t discuss selection matters, but you know it’s a funny game. You miss out sometimes due to sheer bad luck, someone's gotta sit out. So maybe it was McGill this time. But the guy is focussed and looks real good, and will have it good in the coming years.

What to your mind has been the highlight of your career as coach?

I don’t really believe in highlights, but I think the victory over Pakistan in Pakistan was a good moment. And defeating South Africa in South Africa, both in Tests and in the ODI series, was easily one of the greatest moments of my tenure as coach.

And which team would you pick as favourite for World Cup '99?

Look there is a lot of time, and a lot of cricket to be played, between now and WC'99. So it is very difficult to speak about the issue, and also the conditions in England are going to be very different from the ones in the subcontinent and that will have a bearing on the result. Acclimatizing will be a very important factor. We look like a pretty competent side, with Shane coming back, Gillespie back in the pace department along with Paul Reiffel, we have a good side, a team that can take on any side in the world.

Sometime in the next couple of years, though, you are looking at losing Mark Taylor, the Waugh twins, Ian Healy, perhaps even Shane Warne. How do you see the Aussie side coping with that?

Well, you know, its kind of tough to think about it. Look what happened to the West Indies after they lost Lloyd, Viv Richards, Holding and Marshall! But we try to tell the current youngsters to take off from where these guys will leave off. It’s a pretty tough task, yes, but you see we have a great bunch of young blokes who are all looking good, showing all the right signs, so let's hope for the best.

One last question -- Steve Waugh in recent times has been harping on India's over-dependence on Sachin. What do you think?

Well I wouldn’t say that India depends on Sachin too much. Look, Sachin is the best batsman in the world -- but whenever a team has a player like that, people start talking of the entire team depending on him. People thought Australia depended almost entirely on Shane Warne, for instance.

To my mind India has a great side. Rahul Dravid is amongst the best I have seen in recent times -- great technique, and a wonderful batsman. Ganguly and Jadeja are talented blokes. Azza has a great record. So all told, India is a very good side.

People