Neil D’costa opens up on his protege Labuschagne’s poor run with the bat that sees his place in the side under threat.
Neil D’costa, Marnus Labuschagne’s long-time batting mentor has cautioned him against over-training ahead of the second Test in Adelaide. He has also advised him to be less rigid in his gameplan as he attempts to emerge from what is the most serious batting slump.
After two terrible innings at Optus Stadium, Labuschagne is the one in the spotlight, even though Australia’s top order is doing poorly overall. Before missing a straight delivery from Mohammed Siraj on the opening day, he struggled to 2 off 52 balls. On the third night, he missed a delivery from Jasprit Bumrah that would have destroyed the stumps.
Labuschagne finished his final 10 innings with 123 runs, 90 of which came in a single knock against New Zealand in March, as a result of the double failures. He averaged 24.50 in Tests overall this year, which is lower than his 2023 average of 34.91, which was more than 60 in three of the preceding four years.
As the first Test ended in Perth on Monday, Labuschagne was already back in the nets and was scheduled to exercise alone before the team reassembled in Adelaide one day ahead of schedule.
“I’d probably just half what he usually does. Just try and clear it up a bit,” Neil D’Costa told ESPNcricinfo. “Keep working on reacting more, not having such rigid plans. Every batter goes through this. Almost everyone around 30 years old, don’t know why it’s that number, seems to have to this glitch. He’s a guy we all know, he loves playing cricket. He never leaves a stone unturned. He’s super fit. Does he overthink things? I don’t know, possibly everyone does.
“When someone gets to the stage where they are the No. 1 player in the world, they are going to become a target. He couldn’t keep going. He’d be averaging 80. At some stage, don’t want to say it had to happen…it happens to a lot of players. They try a bit too hard and like [Virat] Kohli you have to keep trusting yourself, trusting your processes, trust what you do. Go back and find a way the next day.”
D’Costa, who has already spoken with Labuschagne since the Test, believed he was within his rights to think he could leave the delivery from Bumrah. “That ball was 8.3 metres [from the stumps], that’s going over the stumps all day, every day,” he said. “It just hit the top of the stumps. With a millisecond to make a decision, he saw the length and let it go and it skidded. Are we going to lose sleep over that? I’m not. Would you like him to score runs, absolutely.”
D’Costa partially attributes Labuschagne’s two LBW dismissals in Perth to his practice with white-ball batting, which has led to a tendency for him to be caught playing away from his body.
“If you look at how he plays, he lets a lot of balls go. He always has,” he said. “Think maybe he was working really hard at being a one-day player so for a little while he lost that. And he started nicking. Let me tell you, they [India] bowled so well. They knew exactly he wanted that ball on leg stump. They did not bowl there. If anything, they bowled wide. This team is really well prepared. They executed very well.”