McDonald backs Labuschagne to come good, expresses faith in batters’ spin game

Galle [Sri Lanka], February 5 (ANI): Ahead of the second Test against Sri Lanka, Australian coach Andrew McDonald backed number three batter Marnus Labuschagne to come good, saying that the team is not concerned about his spot in the team and expressed belief in his ability against spin.

The second Test between Sri Lanka and Australia will take place at Galle from February 6 onwards. With Australia, already having booked a spot in the ICC World Test Championship (WTC), leading 1-0, Sri Lanka would like to bow out of their most successful WTC campaign on a high.

Though the Aussies have sealed their WTC final spot, the form of Labuschagne remains a big worry. Since the 2023 start, Marnus has played 24 Tests, scoring 1,295 runs at an average of just 31.58, with just one century and 10 fifties to his name. His best score is 111. He scored just 20 runs in the first innings against SL during the first Galle Test.

In the ongoing ICC World Test Championship cycle, Labuschagne has scored 905 runs at an average of 28.28, with a century and eight fifties in 34 innings, with best score of 111.

Speaking as quoted to SEN, McDonald expressed faith in Marnus’s abilities and asserted that the top six of the battling line-up will stay the same.

“No, not from our end (if team was concerned about Marnus’s spot). The top six will likely stay the same and you could probably extend that out to the top seven, I think they functioned well as a unit.”

“We had a slight shift in the order of events for our training session based upon different workloads required in that main session, so there was nothing to read into that.”

“We firmly believe that Marnus is a good player of spin, he has been here before and he’s made a century at this ground also.”

“With the way that the unit functioned in the first game, it’s hard to see why we would not go back there again,” he concluded.

Sri Lanka squad: Dhananjaya de Silva (c), Dimuth Karunaratne, Pathum Nissanka (subject to fitness), Oshada Fernando, Lahiru Udara, Dinesh Chandimal, Angelo Mathews, Kamindu Mendis, Kusal Mendis, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Sonal Dinusha, Prabath Jayasuriya, Jeffrey Vandersay, Nishan Peiris, Asitha Fernando, Vishwa Fernando, Lahiru Kumara, Milan Rathnayake

Australia squad: Steve Smith (c), Sean Abbott, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cooper Connolly, Travis Head (vc), Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Sam Konstas, Matt Kuhnemann, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Nathan McSweeney, Todd Murphy, Mitchell Starc, Beau Webster.