“That’s the opportunity for cricket,” he said. “The AFL is almost unhealthily at the forefront. If you look at some of the papers these days, if there’s any link you can draw to the AFL … it can be a community football player and AFL is in the headline. That’s the world we’re in.

“I don’t think we want to get it to that point, because there’s a lot of pressure on people, but one of my observations of cricket from the outside over the last few years is that it’s a very small window where cricket seems to be relevant in our country.

“It’s hugely relevant in India and other parts of the world, which is huge for the game. Ideally you’ve got to get to a point where it is more relevant more of the time, and that means more people are interested in it.”

The past week has been something of a crash refresher course for Marsh, little more than a week into the ACA job. He flew to London for World Cricket Connects, a two-day talkfest in the Lord’s Long Room that canvassed issues around the explosion of franchise cricket, the threat to Test matches and the need for a better calendar for players and fans.

Jay Shah, the all-powerful ICC chair and former BCCI secretary, was slated to be part of the event but withdrew at the last moment. There are plans to present some of the conference findings to him later. JioStar boss Sanjog Gupta, who seems destined to become Shah’s chief executive at the ICC, was also unable to attend.

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Gupta and Marsh worked on the World Cricketers Association report into the future of cricket’s calendar, which offers solutions for the game’s disorganised current state. WCC delegates took in a presentation by Boston Consulting Group – also currently reviewing the Big Bash League – which argued that cricket is a $4 billion a year business that could be worth $10 billion a year if players, governing bodies and private investors worked more closely together.

“We’re trying to find solutions that will protect the international game, but in a way that probably would see us playing less international cricket than we are at the moment,” Marsh said. “That’s what’s going to have to happen if we’re still going to have fabulous Test match cricket like we’re seeing here.

“The alternative is if the game doesn’t take those solutions, and there might be better ones and we’re open to that, but providing a structure where players can do both is the only way we can see international cricket continuing to thrive. The players still love Test cricket in particular, they still love playing the ICC events, bilateral cricket is where we’re seeing a move away.

“A lot of it doesn’t seem to make sense and it hasn’t for a long time. These problems were emerging 10 years ago, they’re still here and I don’t think we’re necessarily closer to the solution. But what has changed is opportunities for players and it’s a sellers’ market now.”

The market was very different in 1977 when the late Rod Marsh, Paul’s father, was one of the players who risked their reputations and careers to sign up for Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket. Rod and Paul talked cricket frequently, and the memories of his dad’s love for Test cricket are still fresh.

“We talked cricket a lot,” he said. “His background was international cricket, so that was important for him, particularly for Test cricket to survive. But he was also really progressive in the way he thought about the game. He could see the direction this was going and our discussions were often about finding a way for them to co-exist and not compete.

“He understood where the modern player would go, he was obviously part of World Series Cricket, and the parallels are pretty similar. There’s an element of going, this is a career, these athletes put a lot into it, it’s precarious with injuries and selection, so there’s an element of ‘you’ve got to take your opportunities’, and the game’s got to adapt to where they are.”

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Two ideas in the mix are for the return of a T20 Champions League but also for Saudi Arabian investment in the sport. Marsh is sceptical about the first, having seen the first edition collapse following an overheated deal that ESPNStar signed in 2008 and then cashed out of. But he argues that cricket is not so well-placed that it can say no to investment opportunities.

“If we’ve got investors wanting to get involved in cricket, no matter where they come from I think we should be open to the conversation,” Marsh said. “Cricket is still trying to find its structure.

“If you look at other sports, what will probably shake out here is there will be a series of big leagues that players gravitate towards, probably a second tier of leagues for a second tier of players, and that’s exciting for a cricketer.”

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