The road to redemption may be long but dumped Australian batsman Shaun Marsh took a positive first step in the Sheffield Shield clash at the Gabba on Tuesday.
Western Australia’s Marsh looked to have reversed his fortunes after Queensland gave him a life on 34 but his luck ran out on 79.
His knock helped WA reach 4-250 when bad light ended play late on day two – just two runs shy of claiming first innings points against Queensland.
But it did so much more for Marsh’s confidence.
Marsh was desperate to find form ahead of the upcoming tour of the West Indies after being relegated to Shield cricket following four ducks in his past seven innings for Australia.
“It has been a tough six weeks for me – a real challenge,” Marsh said.
“I was pretty nervous leading up to this game.
“Getting through the first 20 balls, which I haven’t been able to do, was good for me.”
But his run of outs looked set to continue when he was beaten first ball by Luke Feldman (2-41) before surviving a confident LBW shout by another out to prove a point – Ben Cutting.
Then came the big break – he was dropped at short-leg by Wade Townsend off leg-spinner Cameron Boyce just before tea.
“I was a bit tentative (at first but) I was nicking those in the Test series,” Marsh said of his first ball.
“I was a bit lucky there. I was just happy to spend a bit of time out in the middle.
“Hopefully I can build on that now, have a strong finish and see what happens.”
But Marsh did not want to preoccupy his thoughts with the upcoming Windies tour.
“That’s the furtherest thing from my mind at the moment,” he said.
“(But) I need some big hundreds to push my case.”
Marsh hit 13 fours in his three hour knock.
He was finally undone when he looked to play Alister McDermott (1-39) on the leg-side, only to provide a leading edge to gully.
Marsh enjoyed a 56-run stand with WA captain Marcus North (35) after piling on 99 for the second wicket with opener Liam Davis (68).
Cutting is also hoping to revive hopes of an Australian call-up after returning from a side strain suffered in December following a 12th man stint in the first Test against New Zealand.
Cutting hit Marsh in the shoulder and North in the head but finished with 0-56 by stumps.
Earlier, Chris Lynn’s 80 helped Queensland move their overnight score of 7-212 to 251 all out.
