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Australian cricket great Rod Marsh is being hailed as among the sport's most influential figures after passing away, aged 74.

Marsh died in an Adelaide hospital after suffering a heart attack in Queensland last week.

"Rod was a colossal figure of Australian cricket," Test captain Pat Cummins said.

"He gave us almost 50 years of incredible service.

"He reinvented the role of the wicketkeeper.

"He was the first Australian wicketkeeper to score a (Test) hundred, he was incredible behind the stumps and a brave, swashbuckling style is what left long-lasting memories."

Marsh suffered a heart attack in Bundaberg, Queensland, last Thursday.

He was transferred in an induced coma to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, in the city he resided, earlier this week.

"He has been an incredible husband, father and grandfather and we have been so fortunate to have had him in all our lives," Marsh's son Paul said in a statement on behalf of his family.

"We are so grateful for all the love and support our family has received from so many people over the last week. It has given us strength in the most difficult week of our lives."

A combative wicketkeeper-batsman, Marsh played 96 Test matches for Australia between 1970 and 1984 and 92 one-day internationals.

On retirement, he held Test cricket's then world record for most wicketkeeping dismissals, 355, and scored three Test centuries in his decorated career.

While Marsh's on-field exploits were legendary, the deep thinker of the game was also renowned worldwide as a coach and talent-spotter.

Marsh headed Australia's cricket academy before filling the same role in England and was the inaugural head of an International Cricket Council world coaching academy in Dubai.

He also served as commentator and became Australia's chairman of selectors in 2014, a position he held for two years.

"This is a tremendously sad day for Australian cricket and for all those who loved and admired Rod Marsh," Cricket Australia's chairman Lachlan Henderson said.

"Rod will be forever remembered for the way he played the game.

"Rod also made an enormous contribution to the game by identifying, coaching and mentoring many future stars in his various roles as coach and director at cricket academies in Australia and other cricket playing nations."

Australia's Test players will wear black arm-bands when the first Test against Pakistan starts later Friday in Rawalpindi, as a mark of respect for Marsh.

Tributes from Australia and around the world have flooded social media on news of the death of Marsh, who became a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1982 and was elected to the Sport Australia Hall Of Fame in 1985 and the Cricket Hall Of Fame in 2005.

"Rod Marsh was more than just a successful wicketkeeper-batsman, he was tactical, spoke without fear and spotted the talents of our Aussie's best," Sport Australia Hall of Fame chairman John Bertrand said.

"Respected by all those he played with and against, Marsh had a wicked sense of humour, loved by teammates, loved by the country."

Marsh leaves his wife Ros and sons Dan, who captained Tasmania to their first Sheffield Shield win, Paul, a former CEO of the Australian Cricketers' Association, and Jamie.

© AAP 2022

A child sex abuser in Tasmania forced to pay more than $5 million in damages to his victim has been ordered to also cover court costs arising from "prolonged" and "unnecessary" legal proceedings.

The male victim, who cannot be named, was abused by art collector John Wayne Millwood in the 1980s as a 10- to 15-year-old.

Millwood was convicted and jailed for four years over the assaults in 2016 and released on parole in 2019 after serving just over half the sentence.

The man was in December awarded $5,313,500 in damages following civil action in the Supreme Court of Tasmania.

In a judgment handed down this week, Justice Alan Blow ordered Millwood to pay the man's legal fees.

Lawyers representing the man say the figure will likely approach $500,000.

Justice Blow wrote the way Millwood conducted his defence made the civil proceedings prolonged and unnecessary and caused "great stress" to the man.

Millwood, who is in his 70s, pleaded consent on the part of the man "even though, as a matter of law, consent was not a defence and even though he had previously pleaded guilty to the criminal charge".

"It is significant that the plaintiff was psychiatrically vulnerable, that the defendant knew that and that that was the defendant's fault," Justice Blow wrote.

"In all the circumstances, I think it would be unjust for the plaintiff not to be fully compensated for his costs of pursuing his action.

"I therefore order that the defendant pay the plaintiff's costs of and incidental to the action on an indemnity basis."

In a statement, the man said he hopes the judgment would lay the foundation for better understanding of the impact of legal proceedings on survivors of childhood abuse.

The man confronted Millwood about the abuse in 1999.

Millwood escalated contact with the man in the years following and would stand outside his office and contact him via phone.

Millwood made unpleasant remarks about the man in the comment sections of newspapers and on social media, claiming he was delusional and mentally ill.

The man said Millwood doubled down from prison, writing letters claiming he was the victim of a set up and conspiracy.

Damages awarded to the man included more than $1.5 million for loss of past earning capacity and $2 million for future earning capacity.

© AAP 2022

At the peak of his powers, Rod Marsh was the best wicketkeeper in the world.

He was also a more-than-handy batter, a villain, a rebel, irreverent, insubordinate - and loved and admired as one half of an Australian cricket partnership of uncanny proportions.

Marsh, who died Friday aged 74, was also a coach, mentor and administrator who guided the game's youth through national and international cricket academies.

Born in Armadale, Western Australia, on November 4, 1947, Rodney William Marsh had his introduction to cricket in the backyard of his family home, along with his elder brother, Graham, who went on to become a successful professional golfer.

The Marsh brothers represented their state in cricket at schoolboy level before pursuing their chosen sports. By the age of eight he was playing competitively with the Armadale under-16 side.

"I kept wicket right from the start, but batting was my main strength," he recalled.

The balance between batting and keeping wicket eventually tipped in favour of the latter, although it was probably the former that ensured his selection in the Australian team for the first Test of the 1970-71 series against England at the Gabba.

His Sheffield Shield form for WA had put Marsh in contention for the wicketkeeper's job after the retirement of Brian Taber, although Queensland's John McLean also had selection claims.

Marsh got the job because he was considered the better batsman and quickly rewarded the selectors' faith with an innings of 44 in the drawn second Test and an unbeaten 92 in the fifth.

Australia's new keeper also justified his place behind the stumps holding 10 catches and making three stumpings for the series.

But it was a routine entry in the scorebook of the seventh, and final, Test of that series in Sydney that was to prove portentous.

On the first morning, Dennis Lillee, who had made his debut for Australia in the previous Test in Adelaide, had English batsman John Hampshire caught behind the wicket.

As a result, a simple notation entered the scorebook and the Test cricket lexicon for the first time: c Marsh b Lillee.

The same detail was to appear on Test match scorecards a further 94 times, its regularity prompting Marsh to explain an almost psychic relationship with Lillee.

"I've played with him so much now that most of the time I know what he is going to do before he has bowled. I know from the way he runs up; the angle, the speed, where he hits the crease, where the ball is going to be," Marsh said.

The spiritual connection continued to the end with the pair who began their Test careers in the same 1970-'71 series announcing their retirement during the same match against Pakistan in Sydney in 1984, Marsh finishing his career with a then world record 355 dismissals and Lillee with the same number of wickets, also then a world record.

Marsh began his Test career immediately following Australia's 4-0 drubbing by South Africa in 1969-70 and was joined in the subsequent home series against England by fellow debutants Lillee and Greg Chappell, a triumvirate that was instrumental in Australia's resurgence.

Little more than a year later, Australia drew the 1972 series in England 2-2 and then won all three Test matches against Pakistan in '72-'73 before a 2-0 away defeat of the West Indies and successive Ashes series wins over England.

Australia's run ended in England in 1977, in a series played against a backdrop of rumblings about World Series Cricket. The home team's 2-0 success heralded a tumultuous period in which Marsh, Lillee and Chappell, who been the cornerstone of success, were now leaders of the WSC defection.

With the disbanding of World Series Cricket the three returned in 1979-80 for home series against the West Indies and England, but hostility accompanied them.

An on-again-off-again captaincy imbroglio involving Kim Hughes and Chappell was fuelled by Lillee's view that Marsh should have been made captain, a belief with which the latter concurred.

Marsh never backed away from accusations he and Lillee disapproved of Hughes, insisting later it was a matter of his fellow West Australian not being ready for the job.

In a further, notorious incident, the names Marsh and Lillee were again mentioned on the same line when the pair bet, at 500-1, that England would come from a seemingly impossible position to win the third Test at Headingly in 1981.

Marsh had PS5 and Lillee PS10 on their rivals who duly blasted their way to victory on the back of Ian Botham's second innings of 149 not out.

On his retirement in 1984, Marsh had played in 96 Tests, taken a record 355 dismissals and scored 3633 runs with a top score of 132 at an average of 26.5. He was also the first Australian wicketkeeper to make a Test century, and played in the first one-day international, against England in Melbourne in 1971.

Marsh later headed the cricket academies of Australia and England, and was inaugural head of an ICC world coaching academy in Dubai. He also became Australian chairman of selectors.

Although a tough competitor and mentor, he was respected worldwide for his fairness and knowledge of the game.

His sportsmanship was exemplified when Greg Chappell directed his brother Trevor to bowl an underarm delivery against New Zealand in a one-day international in 1981 - Marsh shook his head in disapproval, trying to dissuade his captain.

"Respect," said Marsh "is part of my non-negotiables."

Marsh became a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1982 and was elected to the Sport Australia Hall Of Fame in 1985 and the Cricket Hall Of Fame in 2005.

Marsh leaves his wife Ros and sons Dan, who captained Tasmania to their first Sheffield Shield win, Paul, a former CEO of the Australian Cricketers' Association, and Jamie.

© AAP 2022