The Sandpapergate scandal is generally viewed as a stain on Australian cricket, something which happened, has been learned from, and is now best forgotten, though that’s easier said than done.
However, there is one benefit of the saga which is oft-forgotten: the Test debut of Marnus Labuschagne, now the No.3 ranked Test batsman in the world. Indeed, if you follow the butterfly effect all the way through, you could argue that his ‘second debut’, in the 2019 Ashes against England, wouldn’t have happened were it not for the bans handed down to the ball-tampering trio. Given his impact on that series, for which he was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year, you could argue that Australia’s first successful Ashes defence in England since 2001 can be traced all the way back to the plot to scratch up the ball at Newlands.
Let’s take it back to Labuschagne’s debut in the UAE. At the time, he had scored 2,147 first-class runs at an average of 34.08. In his most recent game before the tour to play Pakistan, he had made a pair against India A in India. Little about his record suggested a potentially world-class batsman in waiting, but Australia were desperate. The 17/18 Sheffield Shield season had been the most prolific of Labuschagne’s career, with him averaging just under 40, and needing to fill three gaps in the top six, and with his useful leg-spin also noted, he was given a go at No.6. Australia had little to lose.
Labuschagne made 80 runs at 20.25, though seven wickets did come at 22.42, and he played only a bit-part in the Australia Test summer, with him recalled for the fourth Test against India and the two-Test series against Sri Lanka and contributing one half-century and an average of 32.25. So far, so unextraordinary, and it was expected he’d fall back out of contention by the time Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft became available once more.
Labuschagne would indeed be left out for the first Test of the 2019 Ashes, and only staked his claim once the trio were back in the side. And yet that first stint in Test cricket was crucial; without it, Labuschagne could never have embarked on the stint with Glamorgan that transformed him from a middling player into one of the world’s best.
At the time, ECB rules only allowed counties to sign overseas players if they had played international cricket. Had Labuschagne not made his Test debut in the 2018/19 season, then Glamorgan couldn’t have signed him for the start of the 2019 summer. By the start of the Ashes, Labuschagne had more than doubled his tally of first-class hundreds, with five tons flowing for the Welsh side.
But it’s a knock much smaller that Labuschagne attributes as the turning point. “This is going to sound a bit silly, but I made 37 against Derbyshire at Swansea and I would say that was one of my favourite innings because of the way I played,” he told Wisden.com. “That really set me up to trust my game and trust how I went about it. That was one of the first games that I really said to Matt [Maynard, Glamorgan coach], ‘This is what I’m going to do, this is my thinking’, and Matt gave me all the backing I needed.”
Maynard agreed. “He had a couple of technical issues which he quickly sorted out over here and he’s flourished,” he said.
What happened next is written in Ashes folklore. The Jofra Archer spell, the sickening blow to Steve Smith, the history made as Test cricket’s first concussion sub. Instantly, Labuschagne looked a player transformed. He made a battling half-century at Lord’s to stave off an unlikely England victory push, and then played a key hand at Old Trafford, where Australia retained the urn. He came in inside the first over of the game, with Australia soon 28-2 as Stuart Broad worked his new-ball magic. A century stand with Steve Smith set Australia on the path to victory.
Australia had Labuschagne to thank, in part, for retaining the urn, and he had the ball-tampering scandal, in part, to thank for his debut, which in turn led to the county stint that changed everything.
