In addition to his top-order batting talents and exceptional catching prowess in the gully, Cameron Green’s singular skill with the ball could be sorely missed by Australia during the upcoming Border-Gavaskar Trophy series.
Green, who will miss the entire summer after undergoing spinal surgery to repair stress fractures, was the man skipper Pat Cummins would turn to when it was time to enact ‘the bouncer plan’.
When spinner Nathan Lyon was forced out of the Ashes Test at Lord’s last year and England’s ‘Bazballers’ threatened to run amok in his absence, Green sent down 22 overs of mostly short-pitched deliveries as his team ultimately secured a 43-run win.
With Green sidelined for the entirety of the NRMA Insurance Test Series, his auxiliary bowling workload will be largely taken up by fellow allrounder Mitchell Marsh.
But Marsh has done little bowling of late, and when he does his skills lend themselves more to back-of-a-length and outswing at a marginally reduced pace rather than the gut-busting chore of banging in bouncer after bouncer.
So if Australia find a need to repeatedly target the upper-body of India’s batters – as New Zealand’s one-man bumper battery Neil Wagner did in a day-night Test at Perth Stadium five years ago – they may need to think outside the box.
One candidate who will happily put his hand up for the high-intensity, much-maligned job is frustrated fast bowler-turned top-order batter, Marnus Labuschagne.
Since taking on the captaincy of Queensland in the Sheffield Shield and domestic One-Day Cup competition, Labuschagne has significantly increased his bowling loads and has operated almost exclusively as a medium-pacer rather than occasional leg spinner.
His value in that guise increased in Queensland’s Shield opener against WA at the WACA Ground last month when he bounced out the home team’s last two batters to finish the first innings with 2-5 from 6.2 overs.
In Queensland’s next Shield game – against South Australia on the notoriously flat pitch at Allan Border Field – Labuschagne bowled a total of 27 overs across both innings, which he believes will hold him in good stead should he be tossed the ball in an upcoming Test.
“I would love nothing more than to be that guy,” Labuschagne said during the build-up to Friday’s series opener in Perth when asked if he was primed to fill Green’s bowling boots.
“But we’ve got to convince the Australian captain of that.
“We’ll see, but there’s nothing more enjoyable than bowling bouncers.
“I love it.”
In a bid to send that message to Test skipper Pat Cummins, Labuschagne let loose with a bouncer at his captain during Monday’s centre-wicket nets session at the WACA Ground.
Cummins safely negotiated the delivery by ducking beneath, but Labuschagne justified the tactic as a timely reminder despite receiving a friendly warning of what might be coming back his way from fast bowler Mitchell Starc.
“Yeah look, you’ve got to go at the top, don’t you,” Labuschagne said of his brazen ploy.
“I bowled one bouncer, and I think Mitchell Starc said, ‘we’ve got short memories’.
“I said I’m going to get them anyway, so I might as well dish them out.
“But practice like you play.”
While the number three batter Labuschagne taking on the highly specialised and physically arduous assignment might remain more a whim than a genuine reality, the fact he’s prepared to do it might give the Australia brains trust food for thought.
When he retired from Test cricket during Australia’s tour to New Zealand earlier this year, Wagner – who had carved out a niche for himself for his capacity to bowl over after over of chest-high bouncers – noted the gruelling nature of the task.
And the indefatigable left-armer, who fought a memorable bouncer battle against Labuschagne and other Australia batters during that 2019-20 campaign, was a battle-hardened fast bowler who trained specifically to ensure his body was up to that unique challenge.
Asked today if he believed he could withstand the rigours of repeatedly running in and thumping the ball into the surface as Green did for almost an hour at Lord’s last year, Labuschagne signalled he was prepared to give it a shot.
“We’ll find out won’t we,” said Labuschagne, whose latest victim with the ball was Pakistan skipper Mohammad Rizwan during the recent ODI series, albeit while the Australian was bowling wrist-spin.
“(There was) a bit of worry when I bowled 28 overs of pace in a Shield game (against SA) and my workloads were zero before then.
“Some would say that’s a big spike.
“But my body is pretty durable, touch wood, and it’s something I’ve done from a young age.
“I’ve always bowled pace.”
NRMA Insurance Men’s Test Series v India
First Test: November 22-26: Perth Stadium, 1.20pm AEDT
Second Test: December 6-10: Adelaide Oval, 3pm AEDT (D/N)
Third Test: December 14-18: The Gabba, Brisbane, 11.20am AEDT
Fourth Test: December 26-30: MCG, Melbourne, 10.30am AEDT
Fifth Test: January 3-7: SCG, Sydney, 10.30am AEDT
Australia squad: (first Test only) Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey (wk), Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Nathan McSweeney, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc
India squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar. Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed
