Cricket
Motorsport
Basketball test
League - Test
Combat Sports
Netball
Football
Why Sundaresan is confident that Labuschagne will return to form with a big score in Adelaide
Lachlan Geleit • December 5th, 2024 11:38 am
SEN Cricket’s Bharat Sundaresan is predicting a big return to form for Marnus Labuschagne in Adelaide.
Australia’s No. 3 made five combined runs across two knocks in the 295-run loss to India in Perth and looked all at sea against Jasprit Bumrah with the new ball.
It wasn’t just in Perth where he struggled though, with the Queenslander averaging just 13.66 across his last 10 Test innings.
While many are expecting Labuschagne to fail again and even lose his place in the team, Sundaresan, writing for Cricbuzz, stated that he expects Labuschagne to make a big score in the City of Churches.
He explained why he’s sticking his neck out with the bold call after watching the right-hander go about his preparation in the nets in recent days.
“I think he’ll return to form and return with a big score. It is not a punt, it’s genuinely a calculated prediction,” Sundaresan said on SEN's The New Ball.
“I've done this before for Marnus and I've done it for others as well. I like to stick my neck out.
“But it's based on what I've seen his mindset being in the last couple of days.
“I talk about this next session he had with Michael Hussey before the Perth Test and the talk between the two of them was about … ‘Why have you stopped thinking about run scoring when you’re defending balls? Especially balls you could just push into the covers for a run’.
“Just the way he's been batting over here at the Adelaide over the last three days tells me that the mindset is right.”
While Sundaresan concedes that Labuschagne could just get a couple of good balls from Bumrah and be sent packing without troubling the scorers much, he is at least expecting to see him go about his business in a different way from how he looked in Perth.
“When you're up against Jasprit Bumrah, he could just nick you off and form doesn't matter,” Sundaresan said.
“But I don't think he will go down the way he did in Perth where he was cynical and pessimistic with his footwork and everything else about his batting.
“So yeah, I'm very confident, not just confident, I’ve put it out there that Marnus’ big score is just around the corner.
“He's got a really good record at the Adelaide Oval.”
Labuschagne averages 63.85 against the pink ball and 71.75 from his nine innings in Adelaide.
The second Test between Australia and India begins on Friday, December 6. Listen to every ball LIVE on SEN and the SEN app.
