Marnus Labuschagne is a lucky cricketer. Just ask any of his teammates.
The Australian No.3 is renowned for frequently being gifted second chances in the Test arena, with opponents putting down catches or overstepping the crease more often than the norm.
Between July 2019 and December 2022, Labuschagne was dropped 16 times and caught on 20 occasions, a conversion rate of 55.5 per cent. Fox Cricket statistician Lawrie Colliver revealed that if the first catching chance Labuschagne offered each innings had been taken, his Test average would be around 44. Instead, the Queenslander averages a touch under 60 in Australian whites.
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Labuschagne’s teammates offer a simple explanation for this good fortune.
“Marnus is the luckiest cricketer in the world,” veteran opener David Warner laughed on Amazon documentary series The Test, the second season of which drops on January 13.
“Every second innings he gets two or three lives.
“He must have that little crow at the bottom of his bat.”
Since making his international debut in 2018, Labuschagne has played every Test innings with an eagle sticker on his bat. The bird represents a bible verse, Isiah 40:31.
“But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
“They shall mount up with wings like eagles;
“They shall run and not be weary;
“They shall walk and not faint.”
The eagle sticker serves as a memento for Labuschagne, but his teammates are adamant it’s the source of his luck.
“The boys like to joke that it is the sticker,” Labuschagne told foxsports.com.au.
“We’ll keep everybody happy and not take it off.
“I can’t help it if people have got butterfingers when I nick it.”
During last summer’s day-night Ashes Test in Adelaide, behind-the-scenes clips of which are shown in The Test, England wicketkeeper Jos Buttler put down two regulation catches against Labuschagne in the first innings.
Buttler would have pouched the second chance 99.9 per cent of the time, but instead, he gifted Labuschagne another life five runs short of a century.
The Australian run-scoring machine brought up his sixth Test century the following morning, reaching the milestone in 287 deliveries.
Five minutes later, Buttler finally held onto an outside edge from Labuschagne, giving Ollie Robinson his first wicket of the match. Third time’s the charm.
Labuschagne slowly trudged towards the sheds, only to notice the Adelaide spectators desperately ushering him back towards the middle.
Robinson had overstepped. It was a no-ball. Labuschagne survived, again.
His teammates were left in hysterics.
“I’m honestly going to get that bird tattooed on my head,” Lyon laughed.
“That’s remarkable.
“The eagle does something, doesn’t it?”
After the Adelaide Test, which Australia won by 275 runs, Labuschagne was anointed the world’s No. 1 Test batter for the first time in his career, leapfrogging England captain Joe Root on the ICC rankings.
The 28-year-old has scored 3150 Test runs at 59.43, the seventh-highest batting average in history.
“Everyone knows cricket’s a major part of my life. The value of me as a person isn’t in cricket. It’s in my faith,” Labuschagne said on The Test.
“I grew up in Christianity. Going back to when I was a young kid, laying in my bed, praying every night.
“I might not be the carbon copy Australian cricketer that people thought, but I’m me.
“One of the biggest things in sport is your mind, and once your mind goes down a path, you can’t stop it. It just goes down that path.
“I don’t think stickers matter until you start thinking it matters.”
Would Labuschagne ever consider playing a Test innings without the eagle sticker on his bat?
“I hope not,” Lyon laughed.
The Australian dressing room is considerably more diverse than past generations. Scott Boland is the nation’s second Indigenous men’s Test cricketer, while Usman Khawaja remains the only Muslim cricketer to represent Australia in Tests.
Born in Pakistan, Khawaja and his family moved to Australia when he was four years old.
“I grew up in Australia in the 1990s,” Khawaja explained on The Test.
“People didn’t really know what Islam was back then. People would just automatically assume I was from India. They thought Hinduism and Islam was the same thing.
“They asked me why I don’t wear a turban. Because of that, I felt judged. I used to be called a lot of names. Curry muncher. Derogatory terms. I never let them show that it hurt me, but it did.
“Particularly if you look slightly different, you’re going to get people who try to bring you down, and you’ve got have faith in yourself.
“Most of the time people do that is because they’re afraid of what they don’t, they afraid of what you don’t understand.”
Khawaja acknowledges God whenever he reaches triple figures, looking up the skies before celebrating with a dance, or a dab, or LeBron James’ ‘The Silencer’.
“I always enjoy bringing a bit of colour to Test cricket, both figuratively and literally,” the veteran opener told reporters at the SCG on Friday.
“I’m just grateful to be there, grateful to have the opportunity to score a hundred.
“Every time I (score a century), I say a prayer before anything, then I go on with my celebrations.
“Religion’s a bit part of my life, No. 1. My family and my religion are the two most important things in my life.”
