Captain Tim Paine has challenged the recalled Mitchell Marsh to mirror the performance of England all-rounder Ben Stokes.

Marsh, who has not played Test cricket since December 2018, has been named in the XI for this week’s Ashes series decider at The Oval in London.

Stokes is the hosts’ leading run-scorer this series. He has also bowled the home side’s third-most overs, but will play as a specialist batsman at The Oval due to a shoulder injury.

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‘Mitchell has worked his backside off actually for the last six or seven months. He got some pretty honest feedback when he was dropped during the India series about where he was at both physically and with his cricket,’ said Paine.

‘He had a choice to make, either to sulk about it or to do something about it, and Mitch at the moment is as fit as we’ve seen him. During this Ashes even watching Stokes go about it, we’ve constantly spoken to him about being at that sort of fitness where you can bowl 25 to 30 overs and then come out and score a ton.

‘That’s something Mitch has watched up close and something he’s aspiring to, so certainly when he’s fitter his bowling goes to another level. When you’re a boy the size he is, it’s hard to run in all day when you’re carrying a few extra kilograms, so he’s worked really hard to work them off.’

Batsman Travis Head, meanwhile, has been dropped. Head has scored fewer than 200 runs and averages under 30 this series.

‘We’ve been really clear with Travis why he’s not playing this game. We think he’s had a fantastic start, he’s played 10 Tests and has a very healthy average but we want to get the makeup right to win this Test match and unfortunately we had to make a really tough call on someone, and it happened to be Travis,’ added Paine.

Australia retained the Ashes title after winning last week’s fourth Test at Old Trafford in Manchester. They won the 2017-18 Ashes series. The tourists lead the current series 2-1.

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