Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\nBut a \u201crefreshed\u201d Labuschagne hopes an extended break away from cricket since June\u2019s ODI tour of Bangladesh will be just the tonic to turn his form around, beginning against the same opponent in Darwin next week.<\/p>\n
\u201cSitting here now, after eight weeks of being able to go back to my fundamentals and working on my game \u2026 it\u2019s something that I definitely needed,\u201d the 32-year old told media ahead of the first Test.<\/p>\n
‘Refreshed’ Marnus ready for Bangladesh | 02:54<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re on the road playing for the last seven or eight years straight, this is the longest break I\u2019ve had.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to find long-term solutions in such a short time frame when you\u2019ve only got three weeks between tours – being on the road for so long, trying to find your feet, a lack of confidence. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019ve missed out a few times, you get a little greedy and start searching for runs instead of letting the game come to you.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver a four or five-year period, some of those technical things just keep growing and growing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been times where I\u2019ve tried to get things in order, but I just run out of time to fully commit to those small changes and you revert back to what you\u2019ve been doing. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou never get off that cycle until you have a little gap, so it\u2019s been really nice to go back and find my best form and what it looks like for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labuschagne has spent his time off with wife Rebekah, three-year old daughter Hallie and one-year old son Judah.<\/p>\n
A remarkable start to his Test career saw his batting average swell to 61.43 in December 2022.<\/p>\n
But he enters a crucial 12 months which features 19 Tests on three continents, plus a likely berth in the World Test Championship final in England next year, having seen it drop to 44.70.<\/p>\n
His 22-Test century drought has now risen to 1,112 days, dating back to the fourth Test of the 2023 Ashes.<\/p>\n
Labuschagne admitted the ongoing quest to turn things around – and reach three figures once more – has at times left him \u201cdrained\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just want to get to that three-figure score,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Marnus Labuschagne of Australia walks off after being dismissed by Ben Stokes in the fifth Ashes Test. (Photo by Cameron Spencer\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to get that score rather than just staying in the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve reflected a lot in these past two months about when I played at my best, and it\u2019s just letting the game come to me and being able to read what\u2019s happening in the game and just trusting my game and technique and process.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen the runs take care of itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labuschagne\u2019s winter cricket commitments have taken a different turn in 2026.<\/p>\n
He opted against a return to Glamorgan for the County Championship season to play for Hyderabad Kingsmen in the Pakistan Super League, before featuring in all six matches of Australia\u2019s ODI tours of Pakistan and Bangladesh.<\/p>\n
It means the right-hander hasn\u2019t played a red-ball match since captaining Queensland\u2019s last Sheffield Shield match of the 2025\/26 season back in March.<\/p>\n
But he believes the change in rhythm has worked wonders for his mental approach to the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou keep trying to find short-term solutions, because you know it\u2019s not perfect, and you\u2019re striving for perfection,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou do that over a four or five-year period and it drains you.<\/p>\n
Marnus Labuschagne\u2019s most recent Test century came during the 2023 Ashes. (Photo by Stu Forster\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been really nice to be in a real comfortable space with how I\u2019m batting and how my game\u2019s working.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow it\u2019s just about trusting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labuschagne is all but certain to retain his spot at No.3 for the two-Test home series, and then on into three crucial Tests against reigning World Test Championship winners South Africa in October.<\/p>\n
However, a poor run of form could open the door for young guns Campbell Kellaway or Sam Konstas to stake a claim for a top-order berth, though both missed the chance to put their names forward<\/a> with early dismissals for a Cricket Australia XI in a tour match against Bangladesh in Darwin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fresh off two months without cricket, Marnus Labuschagne has admitted a \u201clack of confidence\u201d contributed to his prolonged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":846218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-846217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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