Coach Andrew McDonald and captain Pat Cummins acknowledged Starc had issues and was in pain, but believed it was right for him to play for Sydney.
However, Starc’s problems and his workload throughout the series alongside Cummins highlighted the lack of contribution from Australia’s fifth bowler in Marsh. He bowled just 33 overs in the series’ seven innings (excluding Brisbane’s two brief innings), and after taking 2 for 12 in the first innings of the series, he had figures of 1 for 127 in the last 28 overs.
Travis Head provided Australia with a vital match-winning breakthrough in the fourth innings at the MCG as Marsh did not bowl at all in the last two sessions despite Australia’s quicks needing a period of rest. However, McDonald insisted he was not worried about Marsh contributing the ball.
“No, don’t worry,” McDonald said after the memorable win at the MCG. “And I think people probably read too much into it. We didn’t ask him to have the ball as often as we thought. He bowled again today. His pace was in the 120s (kph). There is no risk of injury there.
“I think it’s a bit unfair from that angle. We haven’t called on him at certain times for whatever reason, so it’s more of a tactical implementation rather than physicality. I think the amount of overs we’ve been bowling throughout the series has been a bit unfair.” Having done it will probably help us.
“We’ve been relatively light throughout the series, so I expect both attacks will be decent enough to put pressure (in the final Test). Does that mean we need a fifth bowler? We still need a fifth bowler. But Are we going to put a huge demand on the fifth bowler, maybe not?”
However, Marsh’s limited contribution worsened his meager returns with the bat. Reigning Allan Border Medalist was Australia’s best Test batsman with half a century, scoring four of Australia’s six wins against Pakistan, West Indies and New Zealand last season. But in this series he scored just 73 runs in 10.42 seconds, 47 of which came in Perth’s second innings, long after the game had ended. Nathan McSweeney scored 72 runs at 14.40 before being dropped in the fourth Test.
Despite the poor series and history of self-doubt, McDonald believed Marsh was in good spirits.
“Does he want to perform better? There’s no question about that,” he said. “Over four Test matches he hasn’t delivered at the level he wants to and we want him to, but he continues to improve. We’ve just won a Test match. He’s in a pretty good headspace.”
McDonald was confident that despite Starc’s pain his three quickies could handle the short transition to Sydney.
“Any time you pass a game, that’s always a good indicator that you have a chance in the next game,” McDonald said. “It didn’t stop him. He obviously had some discomfort at the beginning of the spell, but once he warmed up he seemed to be pretty free. (His) ball speed was good.
“We’ll see how everyone recovers. The last bowling was quite an attritional game, something we’ve not been used to over the last few years. Surely Stacy has something to explain. We’ll look into it. “But other than that, I mean, it looks like we haven’t suffered quite a bit of damage, but (a) short recovery is important and we’ll evaluate how the team looks in Sydney based on the surface, as always.”
Australia released Richardson on New Year’s Eve to play a BBL match for Perth Scorchers in Adelaide, but he will return to the squad on Wednesday and McDonald is confident he will be available to play if needed despite his injury history.
“I feel very confident,” he said. “He’s here for a reason, so he wouldn’t be here if we weren’t confident. He’s had a tough week in the nets with us. All indications are that he could bowl 40-plus overs if he did. I have been called.
“Sean Abbott is there too. We think he will be able to help if asked because the SCG is his home ground. It is about assessing our frontline quickness and making decisions from there.”
Josh Inglis, who played as a reserve batsman throughout the series, suffered a calf injury while fielding as a substitute at the MCG on the second day and was left out of the squad. It has not yet been confirmed whether a replacement will be named.
Alex Malcolm is the editor-in-chief of ESPNcricinfo.
