Border-Gavaskar Trophy | ‘I took a lot out of my ability to find a way’: Marnus Labuschagne on finding form at Adelaide | Cricket News
Border-Gavaskar Trophy: With a total of five runs in the opening Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy at Perth, Australian batsman Marnus Labuschagne came into the Pink Ball Test at Adelaide with lots on stake. The 30-year-old had only scored one century in his last 40 innings and played a crucial knock of 64 runs in tough conditions in Australia’s first innings to play his part in the hosts’ ten wicket win in Adelaide on Sunday. Labuschagne has shared how he coped with the disappointing start in Perth and bounced back.
“At the end of the Perth Test, I knew I wasn’t moving into the ball well. There were a lot of things I didn’t like about how I played. The positives I took out of it was (despite) my technique and how I was playing, I managed to last (nearly) 60 balls out in the middle. For me, I took a lot out of my ability to find a way.” Labuschagne told cricket.com.au.
The right-handed batsman, who had made his Test debut against Pakan at Dubai in 2018, had an average of 60.82 in his first 52 innings with ten hundreds and 13 half centuries. But the next 40 innings saw his average dropping to 40 and only seven half-centuries and one hundred in that period. With many in Australia questioning his place in the Australian team, Labuschagne got support in the form of former Australian coach Justin Langar as well his batting mentor Neil D’Costa and Australian batting coach Michael di Venuto.
According to Labuschagne, one of the foremost things was to tweak the technique of shifting his weight into the ball more and a shift in his pre-ball trigger movement. “I wanted to get a gauge on different things. It took all week really to try and work on different things, find out if that worked, and keep filtering through until I found out what I needed to. The 10 days off was about trying to reconnect moving into the ball, lining the ball up nicely and finding out where I was missing the link there. I was hitting day after day for nine days straight, just finding a way to get back to where I wanted to be. That was the journey I started on Tuesday and I wanted to make sure that when I got here in Adelaide that I was able to be in a position to trust it and go out and play,” said the batsman.
Coming at number three on the opening day of the Pink Ball Test at Adelaide after India were bowled out for a first innings total of 180 runs, Labuschagne and opener Nathan McSweeny saw a tough hour of bowling Indian pacers in night conditions with the duo adding 63 runs before the end of day’s play. Labuschagne would end his innings at 64 runs off 126 balls before he fell trying to slash the ball.
According to a BBC report, the Australian batsman had averaged 15.33 against good length deliveries since 2022 and his average against balls outside off-stump dropped to 17.50 from a world leading average of 78.33 since his debut to 2022, one of the reasons being his early foot movement.
“The things I changed were more pre-ball. It was my pre-ball set-up and getting a better alignment there, getting my head pushing more forward. They were all things before my trigger. I’ve batted so many different ways over the last four or five years so for me it was about which way I want to get back to – and reconnecting that with my new stance. It wasn’t as difficult as it may sound, but it was just for me to find out, ‘Okay I’m going to do this trigger, I’m going to set up like this and lining the ball up really well and get myself in a really good position,” signed off Labuschagne.
