The picture that highlights Marnus Labuschagne’s desperation ahead of fourth Ashes Test

Averaging 24 for the series and yet to pass 50, Marnus Labuschagne has unsurprisingly gone to extreme lengths ahead of the fourth Ashes Test, writes DANIEL CHERNY.

Doing little to hide his contempt for the methods of then-Australian men’s team impresario John Buchanan, the late Shane Warne quipped in the lead-up to his farewell series in 2006 that he followed the adage of a coach in cricket being the vehicle that took the team to and from the ground every day.

Well if Warne was still with us and had been in the nets at Old Trafford on Sunday, he would have seen Marnus Labuschagne stationed at a metaphoric bus depot.

With Usman Khawaja having finished media commitments and no other players left in sight at a session that was supposed to have ended about an hour earlier, Labuschagne continued to receive throwdowns from Aussie head coach Andrew McDonald and assistant Daniel Vettori.

Watching on carefully from behind the mythical bowler’s arm was batting coach Michael Di Venuto. Just off to the side was another of the assistants, Andre Borovec. And in the net beside them was former Zimbabwe champion, ex-England coach and current Australian team consultant Andy Flower.

Marnus Labuschagne training under the watch of five coaches long after the rest of the Australian team had packed up for the day. Picture: Daniel Cherny

They weren’t all throwing in their two bob’s worth between every ball, but the fact five coaches were stationed around one player working well after the rest of his teammates had finished was a perfect illustration of Labuschagne’s determination to turn around what has been the rockiest period of an outstanding Test career to date.

After beating up on the West Indies, winning the player of the series award in doing so, late last year, Labuschagne’s batting average had skyrocketed to 60.82 through 30 Tests.

Eleven Tests later, Labuschagne has passed 50 just twice, his average dropping to a still very impressive 53.80.

It is not as though the man who started this Ashes as the world’s No. 1 ranked Test batter has been completely abject. Only twice in this relatively barren run has he been dismissed for a single-digit score.

Australia's Marnus Labuschagne has been guilty of making starts but not going on with them. Picture: Paul Ellis/AFP

But he has not been able to consistently go on with it. In the third Test at Leeds, he absent-mindedly gave away his wicket trying to whack Moeen Ali over the deep mid-wicket boundary.

It spoke of a mental lapse rather than some major technical chink. That had followed a pair of dismissals at Edgbaston in which Labuschagne had gone fishing outside off to Stuart Broad, who had flagged an outswinger variation pre-series supposedly aimed to trouble Labuschagne and Smith.

McDonald said after the defeat at Leeds that he was taking a glass half-full approach to Labuschagne’s form.

Marnus Labuschagne rues his fall to Moeen Ali in the third Test. Picture: Stu Forster/Getty Images

“I think the starts are the important part,” McDonald said.

“If you can get a start, you can show your method can stand up to the challenges and it’s probably a bit more of the same when you go through the innings.

“Maybe he’s trying to expand at certain times when he doesn’t need to, and that’s a conversation he’ll be having with himself and the coaches. But I think if you’re not getting starts it’s more of a concern.

“If you’re getting starts it shows that your method can work. In regards to the tinkering with his technique, I think that’s more Marnus in the lead-up to any game but when he gets out there the pre-movements are pretty much the same as what they have been.

“Is he covering off stump more to certain bowlers? There’s no doubt about that but that’s a one-on-one match-up and that’s been well thought out. So I’m pretty confident there’s plenty of runs left in him, and the starts to me are the positive not the negative.”

In any case, Labuschagne clearly isn’t going to die wondering. After all, this is a player who has been known to ask journalists to keep an eye on his footwork in the nets.

“If they had their way we would be playing cricket every day,” McDonald said of Smith and Labuschagne, a week ago.

“But we definitely need a break from the nets as coaches, with the volume.”