'That's the benefit for us the way they're playing' - Marnus Labuschagne feels Australia in driver's seat due to England's vow to play 'Bazball'

Star Australia batter Marnus Labuschagne believes that England’s new philosophy, ‘Bazball’ is keeping Australia in the hunt. Notably, in the first Test at Edgbaston, the home team declared early in the first innings, which came back to haunt them on Day 5 as the Ben Stokes-led side lost the match by only two wickets.

Talking about the first Test of the ongoing Ashes, Labuschagne mentioned that Joe Root’s aggressive approach in the second innings eventually helped Australia win the match. The cricketer added that Root was looking in very good touch and if he would have added 40-50 more runs then the visiting team would have been under a lot of pressure. Meanwhile, the English players have opened up and stated that they want to play a similar brand of cricket but as per Labuschagne, it will work in the favour of the visitors.

“Him (Joe Root) playing that method and those shots are keeping us in the game. I use that second innings as an example. He probably had an opportunity to shut us out and take the game away from us completely. He played an unbelievable innings but he ended up getting 46, and if turns into 80-plus we're chasing 300 and that's going to be a pretty big effort. That's the benefit for us the way they're playing,” Labuschagne was quoted as saying by Daily Mail.

I don't think we played at our best in Edgbaston: Labuschagne

Despite winning the first Test of the five-match series, Labuschagne feels that the team didn’t play its best cricket. He also opened up saying that he himself along with Steve Smith will have to get better but eventually lauded Usman Khawaja and Alex Carey for their splendid show at Edgbaston.

“At the end of the day we played pretty under par to what I think the standard of our team is. From a batting point of view, Uz (Usman Khawaja) was outstanding but I think most of the other batters, we want to be better than that standard. Actually, Alex Carey was very good as well.

“We walked away from the first Test 1-0 up and that's a positive sign for use because I don't think we played at our best,” Labuschagne mentioned.