Of all of the prayers and invocations and chants and rituals aimed at the Ashes, through the red-sock superstitions and the shushing of jinxes and the supplications to latent power within tattered posters of Derek Pringle, someone must have connected to a good sprite who sprinkled some magic over the Australian No 4 batting position.
First it was Steve Smith, doing what no player with any respect for logical sequences should have done. When players miss a fortnight of cricket we speculate about them being rusty; he didn’t play Tests for near on a year and a half before sauntering back during a batting collapse to make the best hundred of his career.
A second-innings 142 followed that 144, with another century on the way at Lord’s before Jofra Archer finally broke his concentration and very nearly his arm. A subsequent blow to the head would cost him three innings.
This paper marvelled at how the less credentialled understudy, Marnus Labuschagne, was able to step in as the concussion substitute at Lord’s and calmly compile 59 to ensure the match was a draw. Just as Smith would likely have done, Labuschagne negotiated the bowling, top-scored, and held a shaky innings together long enough to save the day.
Labuschagne was an unlikely swap. When he played a first couple of tentative Tests in late 2018, it came off the back of a few years of Sheffield Shield cricket averaging in the low 30s, and a dearth of domestic batting that meant any player stringing together a couple of scores was in with some chance for higher honours.
But his latest taste of the game at the highest level followed a prolific county stint with Glamorgan, and between the two Labuschagne equipped himself for the fight. Stepping into Smith’s shoes at the last minute was one thing, where not having time to think about it might have been for the best. Stepping in for a full Test once the senior batsman was ruled out at Headingley entirely – that was something else.
The pressure had time to gather and push down, the expectation had time to build, the friends and well-wishers had time to fill various inboxes, and any worries would have time to coalesce.
If that wasn’t enough, walking out to bat on the first day at 25 for two should have been, with the team having been sent in before Stuart Broad and Archer began seaming and swinging the ball in bewildering fashion. Just as at Lord’s, a false move from Labuschagne was likely to spell serious trouble for Australia down the order. Just as at Lord’s, he handled it.
With David Warner as his partner, his method was to try nothing excessive and wait out the deluge. When Archer bowled short he had learned enough to sway back out of the way.
When the ball swung he held his line. When it was straight enough he picked off runs through the leg side. And when wickets fell at the other end he remained in place, batting through to be second-last out for a defining 74. Warner made 61. The next best was 11.
The fairy dust, though, really showed its sparkle in the second innings. You need luck and skill to succeed in cricket, but Labuschagne seems to prefer his portions separately. Starting with a lead of 112, there was far less pressure on Australia’s batsmen. There was plenty on England in the field.
Across the second afternoon and third morning, no fewer than three catches went down off Labuschagne, once from Joe Root at slip and twice from Jonny Bairstow diving across slip. When Bairstow did catch a nick it was found that the bowler Ben Stokes had overstepped. Labuschagne effectively had five innings on his way to 80. But he also had three fifties in a row.
The lesson, perhaps, is that you can’t expect the young substitute to turn straw into gold. In an innings where the ball moved plenty, he pushed down the line often enough to edge it time and again. But a charmed run on one day followed fine work and unlucky dismissals on others, and he has surely done enough to magically transform a brief appearance into a longer run in the team.