Test discard Marnus Labuschagne isn’t just knocking on the door of an Ashes recall, he’s smashing it down.
Having just scored his fourth hundred for Queensland in his last five innings—159 against South Australia at the Adelaide Oval—the 31-year-old sits in prime position for a return to the baggy green.
Given the Australian top order has been under intense scrutiny over the past 12 months, it now seems it would take a brave—perhaps even foolish—selection panel to ignore the performances of the 58-test veteran who, despite recent international struggles, still averages 46.2 with 11 test hundreds and 23 fifties.
The far bigger conundrum is where Labuschagne might actually play when the first Ashes test begins next month in Perth?
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With no other standout candidate to partner Usman Khawaja at the top of the Australian innings, opener looms as Labuschagne’s most likely landing spot against England.
It would see Labuschagne reprise the role he has filled just once before in his career—the 2025 World Test Championship final against South Africa in England where he scored 17 and 22.
The decision would also allow Australian selectors to persist with the Cameron Green experiment at number three—a role he assumed in the winter tour to the West Indies, scoring 184 runs at a modest average of 30.66.
Not that everyone thinks either of these selections would be a good idea, mind you.
Several pundits have expressed playing Labuschagne at opener in the upcoming Ashes series would be a major mistake, most notably former Australian opener Matthew Hayden.
“I definitely do not think Marnus Labuschagne should open because if you’re averaging 30 (over the last few years) at number three, you can’t expect to go higher than that,” Hayden said bluntly on SENQ radio earlier this week.
“To me Marnus is a number three bat, plain and simple, and I definitely do not think Cameron Green is a number three either.”
They’re both huge calls ahead of what is expected to be a fiercely-contested Ashes series, but whether the Australian selection panel of George Bailey, Andrew McDonald and Tony Dodemaide agree with Hayden remains to be seen.
Regardless, if Labuschagne keeps up his current domestic run spree it seems increasingly certain it isn’t a matter of if he’ll be back for the first Ashes test, but where.