Marnus Labuschagne: Inside the muddled mind and decline of Australia’s eccentric No.3

He’s the eccentric and obsessive batter that willed his way into the Australian team and to the top of the world. But the decline of Marnus Labuschagne has been as quick and stark as his rise and it has left experts and former greats questioning if one of the game’s great students is tripping over his own mind. The pressure on Australia’s No.3 had bubbled away in the eight-month period between a Test series against New Zealand in March and last week’s The West Test in Perth. But it came to the boil after dual failures at the hands of Indian destroyer Jasprit Bumrah. Labuschagne’s second-innings dismissal was as ugly as they come. Australia sent a nightwatchman out before him, who was dismissed with minutes left to play on day three. Then Labuschagne was struck on the pads attempting a trademark extravagant leave. His arms were stretched way out from his body and his legs contorted in a bid to avoid the rocket coming at them. He tripped over in a scramble and, for the second time in the match, burnt a fruitless review on his way off Optus Stadium. In the first innings he was dropped before scoring by Virat Kohli and then slaved away for 52 balls to muster just two. Labuschagne has passed 10 just once in his past 10 Test innings. Nathan Lyon has reached that mark five times in the same period. He has just one Test century to show for his past 41 knocks, spanning almost two years. Some of the country’s finest top-order batters are worried Labuschagne, once a natural and free-flowing stroke-player, has his guard up for the “What it looks like from afar is his mindset looks negative. He was reluctant to use his bat, he was really defensive, his footwork was very much caught on the crease a lot so he was caught on the crease a lot,” former opener Simon Katich told The West Australian. “He’s a better player than that, so I would expect that he makes the necessary adjustments come Adelaide, given that two off 52, that’s unheard of really. “In the second innings he shouldered arms after being really defensive in the first innings. “He’s an experienced player and he’s in a bit of a rut, so I guess the challenge for him is how his mindset is. You can hit a thousand balls in the lead-up, but it is going to be how he is come gameday and backing his technique and ability next week.” Katich said he feared Labuschagne was not confident enough defending the ball. “You have to work harder for your runs against Test-quality bowling, but at the moment it just doesn’t look like he trusts his defensive game in terms of wanting to play at the ball and rotating strike,” he said. “That’s a basic of batting at the top of the order, is being able to rotate strike so you’re not having to absorb six balls on the trot over after over.” Australian players were given the week off after their disastrous loss in Perth to rest, a move that has drawn nationwide backlash but been defended by Cricket Australia bosses. Labuschagne spent that period returning to Allan Border Field, where he trained with fringe members of the Queensland squad. But he was not parachuted into the weekend’s Prime Minister’s XI clash or shoehorned into a Premier Cricket match for his club Redlands. Ex-South Australia and Australian white-ball batter Callum Ferguson called on Labuschagne to spend some time away from the game. “I like seeing the jovial Marnus, the guy that has got a lot of energy, he has a smile on his face out there on the park. He probably doesn’t have that level of enthusiasm in the field at the moment, which tells me he is probably thinking about his batting a little bit too much,” former white-ball star Callum Ferguson told ESPN. “I’d like to see him just take a breath, even a day or two away from picking up a bat, which is not him, we know that, but sometimes you do need a breather just to reset and I think that would do him a world of good.” Just two years after he averaged more than 56 in Test cricket, Labuschagne will bat for his future in Adelaide. West Australian great Mike Hussey echoed Katich’s concerns Labuschagne wasn’t focused enough on actually scoring, but backed him to turn it around quickly. “From a technical perspective, there’s actually not a lot of difference from when he was playing really well and scoring a lot of runs compared to a technical perspective in the last Test against India,” he told SEN. “The biggest difference I’ve noticed is just his intent to score. I think he is probably looking and thinking ‘OK, I’m a senior player now, I have got to take responsibility, I’ve got to bat time, I’ve got to be there for the team, I’ve got to soak up all this pressure’ and that gets you in to a tentative, defensive frame of mind. “It is something that can be fixed really quickly, just with a mindset shift, if he can just change from that mindset of looking to occupy the crease and be there and soak up pressure and take responsibility into, whatever I do I am going to do it confidently and decisively and just be a little bit more positive with an intent to score, then I feel like he can turn it around really quickly.” The problem with dropping Labuschagne, if Australian selectors lose patience with him, is that there are no more Sheffield Shield matches between the Adelaide Test and the second of a two-match series in Sri Lanka in February.