Teammate or brother?
Shaun and Mitch Marsh insist they will be thinking of each other only as colleagues in Brisbane this week.
On Wednesday the Sandgropers become the seventh set of Australian brothers to play a Test together.
“We’re really close … I try and keep an eye out for him and make sure he’s doing all the right things,” Shaun Marsh said of his younger brother.
“Definitely a teammate (first and foremost).
“We’ve talked about this over the last 24 hours. We’re going to go out there and have fun and hopefully do our jobs really well.”
There’s certainly a precedent.
Most recently it was the Waugh twins, who excelled together in the Test side until 2002.
Steve Waugh was a childhood hero for Mitch Marsh, but the allrounder says “the brother thing … wasn’t something I really thought of”.
Before then it was Ian and Greg Chappell, who both captained Australia in the 1970s.
Ian Chappell believes the pair kept it business as usual while batting for Australia.
However Chappell admits big-brother “why don’t you pick on someone your own size” instincts kicked in when they played together for the first time in a club game.
“Neil Hawke was a Test bowler and he got Greg out lbw. I sort of got a bit angry,” he explained.
“Apart from that I really never thought of it as, that’s my brother on the field with me.”
There was one major exception – in a baseball game.
“I was catching and Greg was playing third base,” Chappell said.
“Someone came sliding into third base with his cleats ridiculously high, he cut Greg’s leg.
“I didn’t even think about it, I just threw my glove down and took off to have a go at this bloke.
“Fortunately the pitcher cut across and stopped me.”
Shaun and Mitch Marsh glossed over similar incidents, if there have been any.
“He’s always stood up for me when we’ve played together for Western Australia,” Mitch Marsh said.
“We’ve had a few nice partnerships, which is always amazing … hopefully we can put on a big one (at the Gabba).”
They will likely have the chance to do so, batting at No.5 and No.6 for Australia this week.
“It’s like I’m batting with any other batsman,” Mitch said of sharing a stand with Shaun.
The presumed innate understanding of two brothers batting together was a furphy in the Chappells’ case.
“We actually had a fair bit of trouble early on with our running between the wickets,” Ian Chappell said.
“We’d always been opponents in the backyard and hardly played together – but we sorted it out in Shield cricket.”
It was a topic Mitch Marsh didn’t want to broach.
“I don’t think I can talk about that – it’s a bad omen. I don’t think we’ve had one yet,” Marsh said of brotherly run-ins caused by run-outs.
AUSTRALIAN BROTHERS TO HAVE PLAYED A TEST TOGETHER:
*Steve and Mark Waugh
*Ian and Greg Chappell
*Harry and Albert Trott
*Dave and Ned Gregory
*George and Walter Giffen
*Charles and Alec Bannerman.
