Marnus’s fan club fury

Marnus Labuschagne crept up on us and is now almost taken for granted and his fan club is not too happy about it.

Marnus Labuschagne walks back to the pavilion after his dismissal at the SCG. Picture: AFP.

The number one ticket holder of the Marnus Labuschagne fan club was in my messages before breakfast and not happy.

“I wonder how many batsmen bat beautifully and top score on day one of a Test to be unbeaten on almost the highest score of the summer for an Australian batsman and — literally — no one writes about his innings at all and every article written on the day is written about someone else,” they thundered.

“Interesting insight into the cricket public and media.

“Check out The Oz; 4 articles, and you’d think Marnus’ only contribution was being at the other end from Puc. 90% Puc, 10% Smith. Interesting.”

The complaint reminded me a little of a Michael Clarke century which was, from memory, a very fine innings but one that fell into the twilight zone in South Africa. It happened when everybody was asleep.

Clarke was a little miffed that a knock he rated highly didn’t rate a mention but the game had moved on by the time Australia was awake and engaged again with the cricket.

Just one of those things, sorry Michael.

There’s no apologies to Marnus or his fan club president because this is a problem of his own making. You make the bed, you lie in it.

Marnus was 67no at stumps but all eyes were, as noted by the aggrieved correspondent, were on the new boy Will Pucovski who had made 62 and Smith who was on a piddling 31no.

Labuschagne’s problem is that we’ve come to expect just such a performance from him. He has raised the bar so high with his batting since replacing a stricken Steve Smith in the Ashes that a 60 odd is, literally, an average innings.

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He managed to scrap his way to a couple of almost-50s in the first two Tests which was not him at his finest but pretty damned good when you consider Australia did not post 200 in either of those innings.

In Sydney, where the track was considerably easier for batting than Adelaide or Melbourne, he was well grooved and back batting at his best.

The focus on Smith was a result of the brilliant batsman’s extraordinarily poor returns in the first two matches.

No mutant version of a virus could strike as much terror in the hearts of Australians as the thought of Smith revealing himself as fallible. Mortal. Fair-to-middling. Even good-not-great would be send a nation into a pit of despair.

A pair of straight drives to the seamers and a lofted one over Ashwin’s head relieved an anxious Australia.

And, Marnus? Well, he was just being the Marnus we’ve come to expect. He’s been Smith’s understudy, but he is definitely somebody who has entered the area of greatness.

Marnus fell nine runs short of a fifth Test century but his innings pushed his average up to 59.96. Smith is ticking along in the low 60s.

It’s dizzy territory, but given he is playing just his 17th Test you would expect some reversion to the mean.

Labuschagne found his feet in that Ashes series thanks to a transformative Australian winter spent playing county cricket. He was a bargain-basement buy for Glamorgan who got as lucky as the Australian promoter who booked a half-good English band called the Beatles before it all went silly and got them here when it all was.

He might have followed Smith around making puppy dog eyes 18 months ago, but they are peers now.

Labuschagne and Smith are batting obsessives, they love every bit of the craft and never tire of it.

The pair and Tim Paine spent a lot of time working between Melbourne and here on how to handle Ashwin and the work paid off — for the two batsmen at least.

The trio were in the next on what would have been day five of the match with Andrew McDonald and spin coach S Sriram working on strategies, bouncing ideas off each other.

Paine revealed in his column for The Australian a few weeks back that it is Labuschagne he has turned to for help with his batting.

The Australian captain credited the 26-year-old with a change in his set up that resulted in a century in the Sheffield Shield and an excellent innings at Adelaide.

“Steve Smith is clearly the best batsman in the world, but you can’t go to him because only Steve Smith can bat like Steve Smith,” Paine wrote. “Having said that, Marnus had been watching Steve, Virat Kohli and Kane Williamson for some time and noticed their hands were near their back hip in the set-up and adopted it from them.

“In the past 18 months we learned how good Marnus is as a batsman and in recent months I have discovered just how good he is as a batting coach.

“He is obviously a batting tragic, but he also spends a lot of time coaching kids at his club in Brisbane and I noticed last year he was always good at explaining why he was doing something or why something would work.”

Marnus’s ability to coach those around him is something which should be recognised. One of Ricky Ponting’s great strengths as captain was that he understood batting and fielding so well that he could — and did — mentor players in his later teams.

Watch this space, but Australian cricket could do worse.

Anyway, Smith just passed his century mark and if I don’t turn my attention to him now it’ll be his fan club on the blower in the morning.

That Smith’s eccentric, eh? Have you noticed how he twitches?