If you see a fork in the road, take it. And so it is that a little after 4pm on a pale summer’s day in Manchester, Cameron Green walks out of the pavilion to join Mitchell Marsh in the middle. Their gazes meet, and for a fleeting moment we are reminded of that famous internet meme with the two Spider-Man characters pointing at each other. Hang on. I thought I was the tall, big-hitting 85mph seam-bowling all-rounder in this team. So who are you exactly?
They share a few quick words, although given the noise around the place it’s arguable whether any actual information was communicated. Australia are 189 for five, having lost two wickets for six runs either side of tea. Stuart Broad has a nefarious glint in his eye and a little sliver of tongue poking out of the side of his mouth, the way he looks when he can taste blood. Marsh is on two. Green is on nought. The Ashes are afoot, England are rampant and the only thing standing in their way is just under four metres of prime Perth flesh.
At which point it is worth recounting the unlikely sequence of events that brought us to this juncture. Perhaps it all starts when Nathan Lyon pulls his calf muscle during the second Test at Lord’s. In comes Todd Murphy, who bowls nine largely inoffensive overs at Headingley. Meanwhile Green pulls up with a minor hamstring strain and in his stead Marsh scores a brilliant momentum-shifting hundred. If any of those things don’t happen, nor does this.
If you go back through history, Australian selection policy has traditionally been lavishly unsentimental in situations such as these. Martin Love hits an unbeaten century in 2003 and never plays another Test. Michael Slater’s career is abruptly ended in the middle of an Ashes series. Stuart MacGill plays about 80 Tests fewer than he would have done for any other nation. For years Australia have almost taken a macabre pride in benching richly talented players as a show of strength. Shoehorning, tinkering, selection gymnastics: yeah, we leave that stuff to the other guys.
But something about Green has always been different. Ever since he burst on to the scene in the home summer of 2020-21, Australia’s most promising all-round talent since Keith Miller, he has subtly shifted the gravity of the side around him. The golden boy. The fulcrum. The future. The key to resting and managing Australia’s formidable fast-bowling attack. Perhaps even captain one day. Australia are all in on Green, not only as a player but as a concept. And so once he declared himself fit, there was never any realistic possibility that he would miss out. Even if it meant going into a Test without a frontline spinner for the first time in 11 years.
There have been times during this series when Green has looked visibly burdened by the weight of expectation he carries. His bowling has been quick and lively, but lacking its usual penetration and hit for almost a run a ball. He is yet to pass 40 with the bat. Here again there was a kind of ambiguity to him: a young and abundantly talented cricketer still seeking to define his role, still trying to work out the sort of batter he wants to be.
Perhaps this would be less of a problem were it not for the guy at the other end. Marsh was the captain of Western Australia when Green first came into the side in 2017, batting at No 8 or No 9 with a licence to play his shots. Over the subsequent years, and largely from a distance, he has watched the younger man gradually grow into the star all-rounder role he once dreamed for himself.
They are good friends, of course, and revel in each other’s successes. But Marsh will also have known that at heart, this is a zero-sum game. And during his four-year exile from Test cricket between 2019 and 2023, he will have become increasingly aware that only one of these men has a substantial Test career ahead of them.
All of which has given him a curious kind of freedom this series. And here the contrast between them was stark. Green got his first runs with a streaky edge behind square. Marsh crunched a similar ball for four the same over. Green gingerly edged Broad down into the slips. Marsh took a swing and slashed him for four. Green tapped tentative singles off Moeen Ali. Marsh walloped him into the crowd. If Green was Oppenheimer, then Marsh was Barbie.
Which explains why, by the time Chris Woakes had cleaned them both up in the same over, Marsh had made 51 and Green 16. Green may be the coming force in Australian cricket, but for now it is his understudy – more fluent, more unhurried, less freighted by doubt – who is exerting the greater influence on the series. Depending on how Australia’s no-spinner gamble fares, they may not be teammates for very much longer. But while they are, Green may just be able to learn a thing or two.
