Australian batter Marnus Labuschagne felt that his team could have come up with a better batting effort on day 1 of the fourth Test in Manchester. Australia ended day 1 on 299/8 with almost every batsman getting a start but unable to convert it into a three-figure score.
Labuschagne and Mitchell Marsh scored 512 each. Travis Head and Steve Smith scored 48 and 41 respectively. A combined effort from the lower order took them to that score.
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For England, James Anderson on his home ground went wicketless on day 1. Chris Woakes took four wickets and Stuart Broad took two. Mark Wood and Moeen Ali took one each.
Labuschagne, who scored his first fifty of the 2023 Ashes, spoke to SEN Cricket at the end of the first day at Old Trafford. The right-hander has scored 195 runs so far in the series at an average of 27.86.
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“It’s one of those… we’re so close (to the urn)… we’ve just got to take it day by day. Whenever you finish a day with a three in front of it, it’s never a bad day,” he said.
“It obviously could have been a much bigger day, we had six guys get themselves in and I think whenever you do that and one of your big guns doesn’t get a big score, you’re pretty disappointed, especially when you’re talking about guys getting in the 40s and 50s, so no one has gone on to get 60 to 80 even. You add those 20 runs and all of a sudden it ekes out to close to 400 and that really puts a big dent in it,” he further added.
England won the toss and asked Australia to bat first. Usman Khawaja was dismissed cheaply for three. All other top Australian batters got starts. Travis Head (48) was Broad’s 600th Test wicket. Mark Wood, on the other hand, accounted for Steve Smith’s crucial wicket as he was trapped leg before.
Really Good Score So Far: Marnus Labuschagne
Moeen Ali ended Labuschagne’s innings where he played 115 balls and hit six boundaries. The batter said that Australia managed to get a good score in the end after day 1 in Manchester.
“I think we played really well… I probably didn’t reiterate that enough… we just didn’t go on. 300, I think that’s a really good score so far. I think there was a lot of grass on that wicket, it was quite thatchy, it was tough to score” said Labuschagne.
Skipper Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc will resume the innings on day 2 with Australia looking to get close to 350.
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