Perth. Australian batsman Marnus Labuschagne is hoping to give a tough challenge to the Indian bowlers in the BorderGavaskar Trophy series. The middle order batsman will enter the field with the intention of defeating the bowlers of the visiting team.
Labuschagne believes Australia are best at playing the 'long game' and stressed the importance of outmaneuvering the visiting fast bowlers. Australian batsman Cheteshwar Pujara is trying to repeat what he did during the 202021 tour.
“It's going to be important for all of us. I think the way we play, we play our best when we're playing the long game,” Labuschagne said. There will be pressure on them because when you get into the third, fourth, fifth Test, if they are trying to play with the same team and those bowlers are scoring 100, 150, 200 overs by the third Test, it “Got to make a big difference.”
In the absence of Mohammed Shami, vicecaptain Jasprit Bumrah is the most experienced fast bowler, who will lead the fast bowling attack along with Mohammed Siraj and Akash Deep.
Labuschagne's form has been very poor at the beginning of this summer. While he started with a brilliant innings of 77 not out in his first ODI in England in September, his ODI scores dropped to 19, 0, 4, 16 and 6 after that.
In domestic cricket he scored 77 and 35 not out on his Sheffield debut. But after this he made modest scores of 11, 22 and 10 for Queensland.
Having recovered from a spell in international cricket where opponents targeted his front pad, he now finds himself a bit vulnerable outside the offstump. Labuschagne is well aware of how India plan to take advantage of this weakness in Perth.
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Image Credit: KhasKhabar.