Marnus Labuschagne and Usman Khawaja, key members of the Australia Test batting unit, came under the scanner after their woeful run in the ICC World Test Championship final defeat to South Africa at Lord’s on Saturday. However, head coach Andrew McDonald is hopeful of a better patch of form for the two batters when Australia commence the new WTC cycle with a three-match Test series in the West Indies from June 25.
Australia’s wobbly makeshift top-order included Labuschagne moving up to the opening spot for the first time in his career alongside Khawaja, with Cameron Green coming in at No. 3. The trio struggled against the South African pace unit, making only 49 of the 419 runs Australia made across two innings in the final during a five-wicket defeat.
“So you don’t want to play despite conditions, but you also want to understand where you’re heading. That can be a tricky balance. We’ve seen that in Sri Lanka around opening the batting with Travis Head on slower surfaces. What are we going to get in the Caribbean? We haven’t been there since 2016, so there’s a little bit of the unknown, but we feel as though we have got a squad that can cover all bases,” said McDonald.
Australian skipper Pat Cummins said on Saturday that he felt the 38-year-old Khawaja seems to be on the verge of returning to form, and McDonald backed the left-hander to strike form in the Caribbean.
“He’s on contract. He’s an important player. He gives us stability at his best at the top and we like to look at our players at their best, (despite) no doubt, a couple of failures here,” he said.
“People then start to talk about, ‘Maybe it’s the end’. But I don’t see an end date with the way he’s training, the way he’s preparing, the way he’s moving.
“He went back to Shield cricket and got a hundred last year, so I think he’s got plenty of runs left in him. It’ll come down to his inner-drive and the way he prepares.
Though his spot has come increasingly under the scanner, Labuschagne received some backing for his overall career profile from McDonald, urging that the right-hander could well be an integral member of the Test side for the foreseeable future.
“He’s a big part of the future of the team. Anyone that averages 45 or 46 in Test cricket at that age is important,” he said.
“We’ve got older players who are closer to the end than the start. We’ve got some younger players that are coming in, and you definitely want those guys that have, I think, 60-odd Test matches. If he can get his game in good order for the next four or five years, he can underpin that batting order. But at the moment, he’d be disappointed with the returns.
“He’s missed out on big scores. He threatened at the MCG (when he) got a pair of 70s, and, you know, if they had been a pair of hundreds, the conversation shifts as well.
“But we’re confident that he could return to his best and hence (that is) why we keep picking him. It is at what point do we stop picking him?”
