With the wolves at his door, Marnus Labuschagne picked a fight with the biggest and baddest of them all.
The struggling Australian batsman strode on to Adelaide Oval against India with his Test career on the line.
Then he baited Jasprit Bumrah.
Amid a stretch of low returns – eight scores under 10 runs in his previous nine innings – Labuschagne’s spot was openly in question as he walked out to bat in the second Test against India.
But Labuschagne (20no) and Test novice Nathan McSweeney (38no) won the Friday night battle under Adelaide Oval’s lights, guiding Australia to 1-86 in reply to India’s 180 all out.
Pre-match, Labuschagne’s captain Pat Cummins forecast the No.3 batter would be more proactive in a bid to emerge from his form slump.
But not even Cummins would have predicted this.
Labuschagne went directly and theatrically into a duel with the world’s No.1 fast bowler, Bumrah.
The Indian strike bowler – with a pink ball moving appreciably under lights – had just taken a wicket but was nearing the end of his spell.
Bumrah delivered one drama-charged over to the out-of-sorts Labuschagne.
The Australian played a defensive shot and shouted “wait on” as the ball rolled to Bumrah, daringly eyeballing the Indian star.
Bumrah sent down a searing next delivery which beat Labschagne’s outside edge – the Australian again eyeballed the paceman as Indians chirped in the background.
“The heat is on, this is fierce Test cricket and Marnus isn’t taking a backward step,” Australian great Adam Gilchrist said in commentary for Fox Sports.
“It’s like a boxing match, Marnus is saying ‘come on’,” Gilchrist’s commentating colleague, former England captain Michael Vaughan, added.
Labuschagne survived the over. The Queenslander – whose previous nine knocks were three, two, six, 90, two, one, five, three and one not out – faced 18 balls before scoring a run.
He inside-edged his 19th delivery for two, leg-glanced for four two balls later, then scored three through midwicket.
Labuschagne and McSweeney, who played some sweet pull shots in his third Test innings, put Australia in a position of power entering day two.
“It was a good way to finish the day,” said Australian paceman Mitchell Starc, who took a career-best 6-48 in India’s innings.
“The last session is arguably the hardest time to bat … for Marnie and McSweeney to fight through that sustained pressure from a quality bowling attack and come out the other end with a chance then to go on tomorrow (Saturday), it was fantastic from them.”
Starc then added, pointedly, that the pair’s performance came with “obviously a fair bit of outside noise, particularly from this (media) room”.
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