Tim Paine reveals the simple fix behind solving the Marnus Labuschagne mystery and how he can relate to his struggles

A freak injury was enough to do lasting damage to Tim Paine’s batting confidence. But unravelling the mystery that is behind Marnus Labuschagne’s troubling form slump should be far easier, writes the former Test captain.

When I reflect on my career, I feel I didn’t get the best out of myself with the bat.

This is especially true of my cricket after my infamous finger injury suffered in the All-Stars game that preceded the 2010-11 Ashes series, a blow that set me back for years.

While the damage inflicted by Dirk Nannes that night at the Gabba clearly contributed to some of my struggles, there was much more to it than that.

Tim Paine has his finger looked during a Test match in 2018. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

At the heart of it all was a lack of confidence in my game. Mentally it didn’t take much for me to be off. I was regularly chopping and changing with technical aspects of my batting. I had little faith in my method and could be desperate, with no real idea what I was doing some of the time.

This can be the case for a lot of batters in domestic cricket. You have your good patches when you feel like your game is in control but when you have a string of low scores suddenly batting becomes a mystery and you are at a loss to get out of the doom spiral.

I’ve seen it with many players over the years.

What separates the solid or even some top state cricketers from the greats is an unshakeable belief in their ability and their game plan.

The example that springs to mind when I think of this phenomenon is David Warner during the 2019 Ashes. Davey was up against it and having huge trouble countering Stuart Broad from around the wicket.

Stuart Broad was the arch nemesis of David Warner in Ashes battles. Picture: Stu Forster/Getty Images

But if you hadn’t been watching the games or seen the scores, you wouldn’t have known anything was up with him. Davey maintained his energy around the group, both on and off the field, and believed he would find a way to tame Broad.

Though it didn’t quite eventuate as he would have hoped on that front, only a few months later he plundered Pakistan for a triple century at Adelaide Oval. He knew he would find a way out of his funk, and he did.

There are few spotlights in Australian sport brighter than the one shone on a Test batter who isn’t making runs, especially if the team is losing.

So it’s no surprise that the oven has been dialled up to 11 when it comes to Marnus Labuschagne.

The spotlight is now on Marnus Labuschagne. Picture: Paul Kane – CA/Cricket Australia via Getty Images

Clearly Marnus is having a rough trot at the moment, but I have enormous faith in him to bounce back.

He isn’t like me or the state players I referenced earlier. You don’t make 11 Test centuries by accident, and even after a relatively lean 18 months he’s still averaging more than 48 in the format.

I don’t subscribe to the theories that Marnus tinkers too much. He is a problem solver in a positive sense and think he will find a way through. He is showing no signs of a crisis in confidence, the type that afflicts players several rungs beneath him.

Labuschagne’s dismissal rate versus pace since December 2022. Picture: CricViz

That’s not to say that he and Steve Smith aren’t up against it facing Jasprit Bumrah, clearly one of the greatest quicks ever to play the game and a man in control of his game.

He is almost the perfect bowler if you wanted to challenge right-handers like Steve, Marnus and Nathan McSweeney.

Angling in with the new ball he is a nightmare to face. There was a lot of criticism about Marnus’ decision to leave a lot in the first innings and obviously in the second dig he fell after not playing at one that kept lower than expected and nipped back.

But the counterargument is imagine if he had played at one he didn’t need to and nicked off? This is the eternal conundrum facing Bumrah when he has the new Kookaburra. You are at risk of playing at a ball you don’t need to or leaving one you need to play. It is the ultimate catch-22.

Marnus will get through this, he just needs to navigate his way through the early part of his innings and he will be off and running.

It can all turn so quickly. Think about it, midway through day one India was in free fall and Virat Kohli had again gone cheaply. He was cooked, until of course he wasn’t. He got better batting conditions, a nice match situation, tiring attack and voila, it’s like there were never any questions over his future.

Even if Marnus ends up getting dropped this series, he is too good a player for that to be it. Sooner or later he will rediscover his best, and this will just be a footnote to an outstanding career.

Originally published as Tim Paine reveals the simple fix behind solving the Marnus Labuschagne mystery and how he can relate to his struggles