Injury gave me time to hone T20 skills, reveals Mitchell Marsh

After a brilliant ending to his Ashes campaign in England, a string of unfortunate incidents pushed all-rounder Mitchell Marsh out of the red ball mix for the summer, heavily denting his Test dreams. Marsh injured himself, as he punched the wall after being dismissed in a Sheffield Shield game only to break his hand, and was sidelined from the ground for two months, ruling him out for the summer.

Marsh believes that the injury, although being unfortunate, could prove to be a blessing in disguise for him. The Western Australian all-rounder used the time to hone his white-ball skills and force his way into the limited-overs setup of the Kangaroos after a prolonged absence of two years.

"Injuries in sport happen, but obviously I did this one to myself, so it was a little bit harder to take," Marsh told cricket.com.au.

"But the positive was it gave me a real chance to focus on T20 cricket … it was nice to get back and play white-ball cricket for an extended period. In the last four years, my sole focus has been to wear my Baggy Green as much as I can. T20 cricket and one-day cricket got put on the backburner a bit for me when it came to my training.”

Marsh, who led the Perth Scorchers in this edition of the BBL, was in red hot form, smashing 382 runs at an average of 34.73 and a blinding strike rate of 145.25. Marsh was phenomenal in the death overs and hailed his six hitting practices for instilling the confidence in him.

"So as soon as my hand was alright to hit balls, I worked with (long-time batting coach) Scott Meuleman just to try and find my swing again and clear the fence. It was actually a great way to train, it was a lot of fun and refreshing.

"I went into the Big Bash with a lot of confidence that I could clear the fence when I needed to."