McDonald backs Labuschagne to come good against spinners in second Test against SL

New Delhi, Feb 5 (IANS) Australia head coach Andrew McDonald has backed Marnus Labuschagne to come good in the upcoming second Test against Sri Lanka in Galle, saying the right-handed batter has shown in the past about having the abilities to play well against spinners.

Labuschagne made just 20 in Australia’s huge first Test win over Sri Lanka, even as the rest of the top six batters made big scores. The right-handed batter is coming off an average home summer, where he made 232 runs at an average of 25.77.

“No, not from our end. The top six will likely stay the same and you could probably extend that out to the top seven, I think they functioned well as a unit. We had a slight shift in the order of events for our training session based upon different workloads required in that main session, so there was nothing to read into that.

“We firmly believe that Marnus is a good player of spin, he’s been here before and he’s made a century at this ground also. With the way that the unit functioned in the first game, it's hard to see why we wouldn't go back there again,” said McDonald to SEN Radio.

Ahead of the second Test starting on Thursday, Australia decided to release young Sam Konstas from its squad, with the right-hander set to play in New South Wales’ next Sheffield Shield game against Queensland at the Gabba.

McDonald said the reason behind the move to send Konstas home came down to their ‘win now’ mentality, and he’s not concerned about the youngster missing out on gaining experience in spin-friendly conditions, especially with Australia A set to tour India later in the year.

“We prioritise every Test match and we've been on the record around that numerous times. We have that as our underpinning philosophy in making decisions so to go against that potentially shifts the group's thinking around how we prioritize every Test match," said McDonald.

“We feel as though the Australia A program has some great scope for development of players, and later on this year there'll be a group of players that head over to India and play in spinning conditions in long format cricket, so we feel as though that will bridge the gap, our Australia A programs.”

“It would have been tempting to play him last game, but we had a plan around getting Travis Head to the top of the order, and Usman is one of our best players of spin which unfolded. So unfortunately, the squeeze was tight at the top, and we felt that was the best decision for this moment and respecting every Test match that we play,” he concluded.