Usman Khawaja: Plenty of Players to Replace Marnus Labuschagne
His position has, understandably, come under considerable scrutiny. Usman Khawaja, a former Australian batsman, has publicly stated that numerous Sheffield Shield players are producing comparable domestic performances and might contend for Labuschagne’s Test position. Khawaja identified five individuals for consideration in an appearance on Fox Cricket.
Following a difficult tour of South Africa, Marnus Labuschagne‘s future in Australia’s Test team is under increasing scrutiny. In the current series, Labuschagne has scored 37, 37, 14, and 39 runs across four innings.
His poor performances against Bangladesh, when he lost wickets for single digits in two of three innings, show that his issues extend beyond this tour.
Most notably, Labuschagne has gone almost three years and 47 innings without recording a Test century. He gave up his wicket at a critical point in the second innings of the second Test, as the visitors attempted to preserve the match.
What five candidates does Usman Khawaja have for Labuschagne’s position?
Kurtis Patterson was Usman Khawaja’s initial opponent. Patterson’s Sheffield Shield average is at 39, little higher than Labuschagne’s 38. He recently hit a century in addition to consistently amassing runs.
Patterson played two Tests in 2019, scoring a century against Sri Lanka. Patterson has played in 122 first-class games and has already scored a century and a fifty in three innings this season.
Another option is Peter Handscomb, who has played 20 Tests for Australia and scored two hundreds while starting at number five. Handscomb has not played a Test match in three years.
His recent performance is worrying because he has not scored a fifty in his last ten games across all formats since February of this year and was dismissed twice in an unofficial Test series against India. Handscomb was the leading scorer in the previous Shield season, accumulating 724 runs in 11 games.
Cameron Bancroft and Marcus Harris round up Usman Khawaja’s recommendations for experienced players. Harris has 14 Test appearances to Bancroft’s 10, but neither has been performing well recently. Harris stopped a 12-inning streak without a fifty-plus score by scoring double fifties in his most recent Shield encounter. Bancroft was the third best scorer in the last Shield season, but he has unable to gain traction this year.
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Jack Clayton is the only uncapped player among Khawaja’s five candidates. In 42 Sheffield Shield games, the 27-year-old left-hander has an average of 38 runs and six hundreds. Clayton has began the current domestic season on a high note, scoring three fifties in six games across a range of forms.
In domestic cricket, how do Usman Khawaja’s candidates compare?
Usman Khawaja went into depth about his five finalists’ domestic qualifications, pointing out that their Sheffield Shield records were better than Labuschagne’s own domestic average. He highlighted that the same logic should apply to the other performers he had identified if Labuschagne’s domestic form supported Test selection.
