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Opinion
Australia were probably always going to lose the first Test such was their limited preparation and history of woe in India.
Their batters were a procession line of cheap scores as they came and went without too much resistance in both innings.
Getting settled on the Nagpur wicket proved problematic for nearly every batter with only five lasting 100 deliveries in an innings and 19 knocks ending in 20 balls or less.
It may sound harsh in hindsight but Australia’s worst dismissal of the match was by their top scorer, one of the two batters who actually established themselves at the crease.
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Marnus Labuschagne is an extremely accomplished player but the difference between the No.3 and his world-class mentor Steve Smith is that the Queenslander still has a lingering habit of giving his wicket away.
KS Bharat stumps Marnus Labuschagne. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
Smith puts a much higher price on his wicket and when he’s out, it’s usually because of a top-quality piece of bowling, like Ravindra Jadeja’s arm ball deceiving him in the first innings.
Whether he gives the bowler a thumbs-up when the send down a beauty is the latest in his long line of his eccentricities – it annoys Allan Border, who said “What the hell is going on? That is just ridiculous” but you’ve got to take the good with the weird when it comes to Smith’s foibles.
The tightknit duo came together at 2-2 on just the 14th delivery of day one after openers David Warner and Usman Khawaja each departed for one off the new-ball bowlers.
They steadied the ship to take Australia to 29 by the end of the first hour and 76 at lunch, shielding what quickly became clear was a highly vulnerable middle order to end the session in a relatively safe spot.
Labuschagne was using his feet well to the spinners and accumulating runs, as he does, quicker than you notice even though he doesn’t unfurl many outlandish shots.
Reaching 49 off 122 deliveries is by no means a rapid scoring rate but in these precarious situations, it allowed Smith to drop anchor and at least the hope of a substantial partnership was a realistic possibility.
However, Labuschagne fell for one of the oldest tricks in the spinner’s dust-covered book of spells handed down from generation to generation of those who dabble in the art.
The half-century shouldn’t be too much of a landmark for someone like Labuschagne who has passed the milestone 24 times in just 34 Tests but batters are obsessed with numbers.
Jadeja played the situation perfectly – spearing the first four deliveries of the over from around the wicket on a full length towards Labuschagne’s stumps with his left-arm finger-spinners.
Then came the dangling of the bait and the batter bit and bit hard.
Jadeja tossed the ball up this time, slightly slower, and Labuschagne’s eyes lit up accordingly. It was just enough to drag him forward in a bid to play a checked cover drive and the ball spun past the outside edge for KS Bharat to claim a stumping in effecting his first dismissal in Test cricket.
For a contest that can take 30 hours to reach completion, Test cricket is full of split-second moments and this one could not have been more costly.
Matt Renshaw, controversially picked ahead of Travis Head, went next ball when he was trapped in front by Jadeja and Australia went from a cautiously optimistic 2-84 with their best two batters making their way towards a century partnership into a tailspin from which they never recovered.
Labuschagne has been stumped on three occasions in his Test career and run out five times – that’s way too many for someone who has only been dismissed in 55 innings.
All three stumpings have been to left-arm orthodox bowlers – the previous two were to Jack Leach in the 2019 Ashes and Prabath Jayasuriya on last year’s Sri Lanka tour.
And the bad news is Jadeja and fellow left-arm tweaker Axar Patel will be ready and waiting the next three Tests of this Border-Gavaskar Trophy series, looking to lure him forward and spin it past his outside edge.
The Jayasuriya dismissal arrived when Labuschagne was on 104 – he had been given a life when a stumping chance was missed on 28 but then dominated the bowling and was cruising along at a strike rate of 66.66.
Four runs after bringing up his century, he danced down the wicket, decided against a forceful shot, tried to defend and the ball spun out of the rough into wicketkeeper Niroshan Dickwella’s gloves, who removed the bails.
Australia went from a position of strength at 2-204 to be bowled out for 364 and went on to lose the match by an innings. Smith dug in and remained unbeaten on 145 as the tail perished around him.
It’s easy to forget Labuschagne is still relatively inexperienced at international level due to the pandemic causing chaos particularly with touring for a couple of years.
Despite making his Test debut in 2018, this is his first trip to India and he has only played four other series on foreign soil with 22 of his 34 matches in Australia.
He will adapt and he will get better, but he still needs to add some maturity to his game, the ability to be circumspect when the circumstances demand it.
When you’re talking about the top batters in the world, you have to split hairs to separate the very best from the rest. Smith is more like Steve Waugh in that bowlers know they have to pry him away from the wicket whereas Labuschagne has a dash of the Mark Waugh tendency to occasionally present an unnecessary opportunity to the opposition.
(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
The Waugh twins were equally talented but not identical and the mental strength to never give a sucker an even break is probably the main reason why Steve scored 10,927 runs at an average of 51.06 and Mark finished with 8029 at 41.81.
Labuschagne (55.41) is only slightly behind Smith (60.9) and there are much bigger things to worry about than career averages for the beleaguered Australian touring party in India right now.
These two have the ability to counter the Indian spinners and provide the foundation for decent team totals, instead of the measly 177 and 91 tallies in Nagpur, if Labuschagne plays the long game.
Then all the Australians have to do is find another four or five batters who aren’t mesmerised by India’s spin and they might be a fighting chance in the next three Tests.