Given how sharply he snaps his wrists on the slap sweep shot, or manoeuvres his hands into position to do something similarly dextrous on the cover drive, it’s easy to forget that Marnus Labuschagne has only ever toured India once.
In an extremely brief white-ball venture in January 2020 – a matter of weeks before COVID-19 swept the globe – Labuschagne crafted innings of 46 and 54 in Rajkot and Bangalore, hinting at what more he might be able to achieve in Tests.
Usman Khawaja (right) congratulates Marnus Labuschagne on his half-century shortly before he followed suit.Credit:AP
Without ever having won an IPL deal, that remains the extent of Labuschagne’s Indian exposure, leaving him extremely eager – if Labuschagne could be characterised as anything but eager – for a chance to show his wares a few weeks from now.
On a truncated day at the SCG, where murky skies and bad light proved to be even more of a threat to play than rain itself, the advent of turn, some of it sharp, was very welcome for Labuschagne in the circumstances.
For as much as it was bracing to watch him duck and weave away from Anrich Nortje, Marco Jansen and Kagiso Rabada, on one occasion getting stuck perilously close to the chin, the chance to limber up for India against Keshav Maharaj and Simon Harmer was especially valuable.
Educated by his mentor Neil D’Costa over many years, Labuschagne poses wristy questions for spin bowlers that should bring refreshing versatility to the Australian batting line-up in India. Granted an opportunity to tour, he will turn over every stone to find a way.
At the other end to Labuschagne, Usman Khawaja took similar care to spend quality time working through his gears against spin. Right-handed and left, Christian and Muslim, Afrikaner and Pakistani, Labuschagne and Khawaja have many contrasts in addition to their techniques.
But perhaps that most pointed in terms of the Indian assignment is in the contrasting ways they are yet to play a Test match there. Where Labuschagne is yet to tour India for red-ball matches, Khawaja has done so twice, in 2013 and 2017.
Eight times, for six India wins, a draw and a solitary Australian victory, Khawaja has sat on the pine awaiting a chance to bat. In 2013, he was a fringe member of the squad who then found himself as one of four players summarily suspended by then coach Mickey Arthur in the “homeworkgate” dramas around the third Test.
Four years later, Khawaja copped one of the harsher selection verdicts of recent times, left out by the selectors despite being an integral part of the Australian Test side on home soil, ostensibly because he struggled for runs in Sri Lanka in 2016.
“It’s a pretty big decision after just two Test matches,” Khawaja said soon after. “It was disappointing that Joe Burns and I were sort of the scapegoats for not performing. I just thought that I’d only played two Test matches in the subcontinent and I got dropped. I wasn’t the only person who wasn’t scoring runs.
“I only had two bad Test matches on tough wickets. I found it pretty fickle that the selectors dropped me for the third one. It was disappointing how that panned out. But I guess there’s some things you don’t have control over.”
Back then, Khawaja was enduring the last vestiges of hesitance by selectors and others to entirely trust him as a player and a person. It was a many layered issue, and some of his frustration at being typecast as “lazy” or “difficult” spilled out when he proved his ability to make runs in south Asia when saving a Test against Pakistan in Dubai in 2018.
“People think because of my relaxed nature that’s not the case, that I’ve been gifted to be able to get to where I am, but it’s not the case at all,” he had said. “I’ve worked my absolute backside off for the last 10 years.”
This time around, Khawaja has made a spot entirely his own with the most prolific year of his Test career, and in his patient duel with Maharaj and Harmer, the 36-year-old was sure on the back foot, solid on the front, and not shy to play the reverse sweep.
When he mistimed one such stroke at Harmer, Khawaja was given out lbw, only for replays to show he had gloved the ball. Reversal of the verdict via DRS drew a hearty cheer from the crowd of 31,264 spectators, as did Khawaja’s progress to 50, in reprise of his twin centuries a year ago.
Earlier this summer, Khawaja spoke of feeling fresher than his counterpart David Warner, simply for the fact that he had played around half the number of Test matches over the same length of career.
In India, Khawaja and Labuschagne will be equally fresh, and equally hungry, to emulate their efforts under Sydney’s cloak of clouds.
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