Rod Marsh you were a champion...

Well Australia has lost one of the greatest if not the best wicket-keepers in history, with the news that the custodian of the wooden stick thingies ROD 'Iron gloves' MARSH, has sadly been inducted into the Don Bradmans eleven. The Perth boy form the streets of Armidale became a legend behind the wickets, during a Test career that ran from 1971 to 1984 the big man was responsible for more than 350 dismissals – a world record at the time and still the fourth highest tally ever. Yours truly was fortunately lucky enough to be brought up during his time at the pitch, and I can fondly remember having a fence paling named after him in our backyard. Fairdinkum this was in a time when we use to play cricket in our backyards, our family backyard pitch was named 'The Sir Doug Waters oval'.

And if you snipped an edge while batting on the full into the back-fence, the 'Automatic wicket keeper' would come into effect (hence Rod's name on the fence paling). 'Caught Marsh bowled lillee' how many times did I hear that over the years, in fact it was mentioned 95 times and is still a world record!

These two great sandgropers were the best of mates and I'm sure Dennis would of shed a few tears over the last few nights. Goodbye to the 'Spiritual protector of the bails' 74 is a good innings in anybody's book, but this larger-than-life character would probably argue that point... R.I.P Mr Marsh....