Sadza and sixes: How Zimbabwe shaped Mitch Marsh

Mitch Marsh sat on the balcony of the Harare Sports Club changerooms with an older Zimbabwean man, Farai ‘Happy’ Mapondera. Marsh was holding his phone, on which much of the extended Marsh family had joined a video call, among them Mitch’s father Geoff whose job as Zimbabwe’s head coach had brought the Marsh clan to Harare for three years during his youngest son’s formative years.

Happy had worked at the Marsh residence in the Harare suburb of Highland, where a 10-year-old Mitch ate sadza – a cornmeal staple of Zimbabwean cuisine – with him and other household workers who helped the family transition to life in a country thousands of kilometres away from their hometown Perth. “I spent my days with him a lot of the time,” Marsh told cricket.com.au. “I refused to eat in the house – I’d go and have dinner with him. He was a big part of my childhood.”

The best part of 25 years later, Happy, who still works for Zimbabwe Cricket, arrived at Harare’s main cricket ground on Saturday hoping to see the now Australia captain. Only Marsh had left to train at a nearby gym; he was devastated to later learn he had missed him, having himself been making his own plans to surprise him while in town.

When Happy came back on Monday, Marsh spotted him and the pair shared a long, warm embrace underneath the team’s viewing area. The cheeky, stubborn young boy Happy had known now towered over him. Mitch ushered him upstairs for the video-call also featuring his sister Melissa and mother Michelle, the latter having insisted the children were home-schooled while in Zimbabwe for fear they would face corporal punishment. Happy quipped that Geoff now had less hair than during his three-year coaching stint in the early-2000s. “Everyone was a little bit emotional,” said Mitch.

With the first-class career of his elder brother Shaun already underway back in Western Australia during the Marsh family’s spell in Zimbabwe, Mitch spent hours at the Harare Sports Club, playing cricket with the younger sons of his dad’s coaching assistant, Kevin Curran. Some games they must have been: Tom, Ben and Sam Curran have all gone on to play international cricket, too; Tom and Sam for England, and Ben for Zimbabwe, with the opener in the hosts’ ODI squad to play Australia this week.

Marsh’s counterpart Sikandar Raza joked that Marsh was “practically a local” and Marsh conceded, “I actually wanted to play for Zimbabwe at one point.” This week’s series opener, the trophy for which the two skippers posed for photos with on Monday, will instead mark Marsh’s 100th ODI for Australia, the latest milestone in a career that has delivered World Cup wins in both white-ball formats and Ashes hundreds at home and abroad.

The Currans lived briefly with the Marshes after they were evicted from their farm in Rusape, towards the Mozambique border, in 2004 under the Robert Mugabe regime’s land ownership reforms. Kevin had in fact played a crucial part in his country’s first ever win over Australia at the 1983 World Cup, hitting 27 and dismissing Allan Border at Trent Bridge. Adding in Geoff’s own pedigree as a former international batter, that combined Curran-Marsh household boasted 636 (and counting) former and future international caps.

Kevin Curran took over as Zimbabwe coach when Geoff Marsh’s stint ended not long after but the country continued to shape the career of a young Mitch Marsh. In 2014, less than two years removed from being disciplined along with Shaun for celebrating his 21st birthday too enthusiastically during the 2012 Champions League, Marsh vindicated a promotion to No.3 from captain George Bailey by blasting a six-laden 89 – his maiden international half-century in his fifth ODI in a tri-series contest with Zimbabwe in Harare. He slammed seven more sixes en route to 86no a week later, his emergence the bright spot on a trip marred by Australia’s defeat to the Elton Chigumbura-led Zimbabweans. Marsh, Raza and fellow Zimbabwe veteran Brendan Taylor are the only carry-overs from that 2014 series to the 2026 rematch.

“I had the opportunity to bat three in a couple of those games, which was amazing,” Marsh told reporters of a series that put him on the path to winning a spot in Australia’s squad for the following year’s ODI World Cup, their 2015 triumph at home. “To be honest, it feels so long ago that it’s hard to really even remember the tour. But I do know that obviously I had a couple of really good innings as a young kid, and that was a great squad to be a part of.”

As the leader (at least temporarily before Pat Cummins takes back the captaincy reins in South Africa next week) of the reigning 50-over world champions, Marsh sees an obligation to create a similar generational bridge for the likes of Cooper Connolly, Joel Davies and Ollie Peake. The young trio who are at similar stages of their careers to Marsh’s on that formative 2014 tour of Zimbabwe, the last time Australia played ODIs in the country.

“I think a lot of us feel that responsibility to make sure these guys really enjoy playing cricket for Australia,” he said. “It goes so fast. For me to now think that I’m a senior player within this group – I just want to create the best environment for them to learn, to hopefully excel, to experience playing international cricket. We are so lucky to do what we do, to get to come to places like this, tour and be together. I hope they have a great time and a similar time to what I had.”

Back to 2004. On his return from Harare to Perth, the now high-school aged Marsh met a young Zimbabwean boy named Riley Pattison whose family had also moved to Australia. They had not known each other in Zimbabwe, so it was surely fate that these two Wesley College schoolboys with a similar background had found each other on the other side of the Indian Ocean on their first day of year eight.

Marsh and Pattison have been close friends ever since. The day after Australia landed in Harare last week, the entire team and support staff went to the farm Pattison’s family leases on the city’s outskirts. Under the setting African sun, Marsh might well have reflected on the impact this part of the world has had on him.

Qantas tour of Zimbabwe 2026

First ODI: September 15, Harare Sports Club, 5:30pm AEST (9:30am local)

Second ODI: September 18, Harare Sports Club, 5:30pm AEST (9:30am local)

Third ODI: September 20, Harare Sports Club, 5:30pm AEST (9:30am local)

Zimbabwe squad: Sikandar Raza (c), Ben Curran, Blessing Muzarabani, Brad Evans, Brendan Taylor, Brian Bennett, Craig Ervine, Ernest Masuku, Graeme Cremer, Innocent Kaia, Newman Nyamhuri, Ryan Burl, Tadiwanashe Marumani, Wellington Masakadza, Wessly Madhevere

Australia squad: Mitchell Marsh (c), Xavier Bartlett, Alex Carey, Cooper Connolly, Joel Davies, Nathan Ellis, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Spencer Johnson, Oliver Peake, Matthew Renshaw, Billy Stanlake, Adam Zampa