The Benefits of Marnus Labuschagne's 10-Day Break: Finding the Missing Link and Regaining His Mojo between Perth and Adelaide

Australia's premier batter Marnus Labuschagne opened up about his journey to rediscovering his form during the second Test match against India in Adelaide. Following back-to-back failures in Perth, Labuschagne faced scrutiny from critics questioning his spot in the team. Struggling on the bouncy pitch in Perth, he only managed to score 2 runs in the first innings after facing 52 balls. His second innings was even shorter, with his innings ending after just 5 balls with a mere three runs to his name.

The 30-year-old went back to the drawing board to find solutions for his struggle with the bat, which he somehow managed to get. He bounced back with a 64-run knock off 126 balls to play a role in Australia's sensational 10-wicket win. He showed grit and resilience during the initial phase of the innings to tackle the likes of Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj but started playing shots after getting comfortable in the middle.

Labuschagne revealed that he had to take a lot out of his ability to rectify what was going wrong for him.

“At the end of the Perth Test, I knew I wasn’t moving into the ball well. There were a lot of things I didn’t like about how I played. The positives I took out of it was (despite) my technique and how I was playing, I managed to last (nearly) 60 balls out in the middle. For me, I took a lot out of my ability to find a way.” Labuschagne told cricket.com.au.

The Aussie batter suggested that the 10-day break between the two Tests allowed him to go for the hit-and-trial method to zero in on the solutions and tweak his technique in time.

“I wanted to get a gauge on different things. It took all week really to try and work on different things, find out if that worked, and keep filtering through until I found out what I needed to. The 10 days off was about trying to reconnect moving into the ball, lining the ball up nicely and finding out where I was missing the link there. I was hitting day after day for nine days straight, just finding a way to get back to where I wanted to be. That was the journey I started on Tuesday and I wanted to make sure that when I got here in Adelaide that I was able to be in a position to trust it and go out and play,” said the batsman.

He further revealed that he needed to change more of the pre-ball stuff, like head positions and alignment.

“The things I changed were more pre-ball. It was my pre-ball set-up and getting a better alignment there, getting my head pushing more forward. They were all things before my trigger. I’ve batted so many different ways over the last four or five years so for me it was about which way I want to get back to – and reconnecting that with my new stance. It wasn’t as difficult as it may sound, but it was just for me to find out, ‘Okay I’m going to do this trigger, I’m going to set up like this and lining the ball up really well and get myself in a really good position,” signed off Labuschagne.