Rod Marsh says ageing Aussie need not panic

Australian cricket will continue to improve despite worries about the current side's advancing age, former Test wicketkeeper Rod Marsh said on Friday.

"Every time someone leaves the Australian team and they are replaced, they (Australia) seem to get better," Marsh, currently head coach of the national cricket academy, said from Adelaide.

"We're flat out (at the academy) trying to get players to the next level," he said.

Australia's captain Steve Waugh and his twin brother, middle order batsman Mark, turn 36 in June as the side begin a demanding five-Test Ashes tour of England.

"Obviously everyone will tell you that Australia are the number one," Marsh said. "Where England would lie, I don't know."

Australia's record winning streak was broken last month in India. England are fresh from series wins in Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Spinners Colin Miller, 37, and Shane Warne, 31, and champion fast bowler Glenn McGrath, 31, add to the greying nature of the Australian squad which has swept almost all before it, winning a world record 16 consecutive Tests before losing in India 2-1.

Waugh said this month of his Ashes squad: "It is an ageing side but I believe it's still a very good side."

Marsh joined the Academy programme in 1991, three years after it started.

"I think everyone (in the current side) with the exception of Steve Waugh has spent some time at the academy," Marsh said.

"It's getting to the stage where I don't think about the numbers in the Australian team. It's taken quite some time for us to get that way.

When the academy was launched there was nothing like it anywhere in the world.

"We were the first national academy and we should be the best," he said.

Mail Cricket Editor