Australia v New Zealand: Sir Alex Ferguson’s chat to Justin Langer helped Marnus Labuschagne
Marnus Labuschagne’s stunning rise in 2019 has caught most people in the cricket world by surprise – but Australian coach Justin Langer got a tip-off about it from some football royalty.
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A throwaway line from coaching icon Sir Alex Ferguson has echoed through Australia’s cricket summer to sum up the rise of batsman Marnus Labuschagne.
Australian coach Justin Langer met Manchester United guru Ferguson during the Ashes tour and went searching for pearls of wisdom which could be transported from the world of the English Premier League into the Australian dressing room.
The meeting started with Ferguson saying simply “the truth works’’ which prompted Langer to smile at Steve Waugh and say “we can go now … we’ve got the gold’’.
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But then Ferguson moved more specifically into players he wants in his team, away from pure statistical analysis into the realms of what lied deep inside them.
“He (Ferguson) loved people who love the fight,’’ Langer said.
“Maybe it’s what has happened to them on the way through that made them that way but they love a contest at training or in a game. It stands out.
“He talked about consistent players and consistent people. He would rather consistent players and people than brilliant performers who could something one day then not the next’’.
The love of the fight. Ferguson had at Manchester United with his fiesty captain Roy Keane.
While Labuschagne is far less abrasive it’s that same all-consuming, inner drive, whether it be a game of garage cricket or a Test match, that has powered him to centuries in three consecutive Test matches.
On his way to the top a teenage Labuschagne had so little strength his driving game, which is now such a gold stud in his repertoire, was almost non-existent so he worked on using the pace of the ball with flicks and cuts and nibbles and nudges.
He has come all the way from fifth grade at district level to Test cricket, batting everywhere from one top nine for his Redlands club.
Along the way he has been dropped several times from the Queensland team, once losing his Queensland contract, but all the while tinkering, listening and learning, from a two hour coffee with batting great Barry Richards in Brisbane to watching emerging greats such as Steve Smith.
His education stretched to league cricket in England where, six years ago, he played for the Sandwich club and still keeps in contact with friends from that club on a near-daily basis.
He remembers the pressure of being the hired gun and having to man off against the rival professional from the other club.
“You feel it – it’s pressure,’’ Labuschagne said of his time at Sandwich.
“If you don’t score runs today, we lose. You are the person they have brought to England to win games. I remember one day we played Blacktown and they had (Pakistani international) Tanveer Sikander and he batted three and opened the bowling.
“It was overseas player versus overseas player. I got a hundred that day and remember really having to take my time. I had to find a way. You learn from those moments and that pressure.’’
Indeed you do. There may have been only a few people watching and a few more that truly cared about the result.
But the boys from Sandwich learnt early that their young professional was a driven man.
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