'He played phenomenally over there' - Marnus Labuschagne draws inspiration from Joe Root ahead of Sri Lanka series

Australian batter Marnus Labuschagne is looking forward to repeating Joe Root‘s success in Sri Lanka in the upcoming Test series. Sri Lanka are set to host Australia at home for three T20Is, five ODIs, and two Test matches from June 7 to July 12. Australia are currently dominating the Test format, with a comfortable nine-point lead over second-positioned India in the ICC rankings and a whopping 46-point lead over seventh-placed Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka returned to winning ways in Test cricket with a 1-0 series win against Bangladesh away from home, after losing both of their Tests against India this March. They won their last home Test series against West Indies by 2-0 and now face a big challenge in the form of Australia.

The Kangaroos beat Pakistan in their latest away Test series by 1-0 after dominating in the Ashes 2021-22 by 4-0 at home. Australian duo of Labuschagne and Pat Cummins also top ICC best batsman and bowler rankings respectively, and both are part of this tour.

Ahead of this Sri Lanka tour, Labuschagne expressed his thoughts on subcontinental challenges. The recently-won Pakistan series was his second tour of Asia and he is looking forward to facing “a real first subcontinent challenge against the spin” against Sri Lanka. He also praised former England skipper Joe Root for his heroics in Sri Lanka last year where the Englishman scored 426 runs from just two Tests at an average of 106.50.

Learnt a lot from how Joe Root went about his game in the subcontinent: Marnus Labuschagne

“For me, it’s my first real subcontinent challenge against spin, it’s about conquering that challenge. Joe Root played phenomenally over there, I’ve learned a lot from how he went about his game there,” Labuschagne told BBC Sport Wales.

“As a team, we want to be the best in the world, it doesn’t matter where you take us, we want to be winning games and I certainly think we can do that in Sri Lanka. I’ll have to get used to conditions, the heat, and sweating it out, which is something we haven’t had the last few games,” he added.

Labuschange has scored 2390 runs in just 26 Tests at an average of 54.31, but he struggled to perform on the Pakistan tour as he managed to score only 170 runs in five innings at an average of 34. However, he is a key player for the Aussies in both Test and ODIs and is consistently playing in the shortest format of cricket as well at domestic levels.