How Many More Are Coming? The Short Life of Jack Marsh

Book Details

Australian Cricket Society Literary Award Winner 2003-4

Max Bonnell

Paperback, iv + 140 pp.

Walla Walla Press 2003

ISBN 1 876718 60 9

$27.45

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‘How many more are coming?’ were the probably last words uttered by Jack Marsh. It is not clear whether these words were defiant growl, taunting the two men who attacked and ultimately killed him outside an Orange hotel or whether this was a sigh of resignation in the face of, yet again, impossible odds.

This biography tells the compelling story of an athlete who achieved remarkable success in two sports. During a long career as a sprinter, Marsh became known as the fastest man in Australia. Taking up cricket late in life, he rose to the New South Wales squad within a few weeks and was soon regarded as the most threatening and inventive bowler of his generation.

An illiterate boy, born in poverty, Marsh was a member of a people that was subjected to the harshest discrimination in its own homeland. Yet for a brief time, he attained astonishing fame and popularity as a cricketer and a professional athlete. He seemed to embody the hope that any obstacle could be overcome by talent, if that talent shone brightly enough. Of course, most of us want to believe this, which is why the cruel end to Marsh's story is so engaging and tragic.