The Australia National Cricket Team star batsman Marnus Labuschagne and the young India National Cricket Team pacer Harshit Rana were engaged in an intense verbal exchange on Friday, December 6.
The incident between Marnus Labuschagne and Harshit Rana took place during the second Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 at the Adelaide Oval.
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Harshit Rana and Marnus Labuschagne exchange words in Adelaide
Captain Rohit Sharma brought the 22-year-old Harshit Rana back into the attack in the 26th over for a short spell as the India National Cricket Team were struggling to pick wickets.
Rana didn’t look at his best in the innings and wasn’t very accurate with his lines and lengths. However, on the first ball of the 28th over, he gave a scare to Australia when he hit Nathan McSweeney on the pads.
He bowled a full-length 143.5kph delivery to McSweeney that beat the batter’s defense on the inside edge and hit him on the front pad. The on-field umpire, Richard Illingworth, turned down the appeal.
However, Rana persuaded his captain to use the review and send the decision upstairs. The ball ball-tracking showed that there was a lot of movement and the ball would’ve missed the stumps and India lost the review.
Meanwhile, in the 30th over, Harshit Rana was involved in a verbal clash with Marnus Labuschagne. On the second ball of the over, Rana bowled a 140.7kph bouncer and Labuschagne thought about playing a pull shot before pulling out at the last moment.
Just after the delivery, the batsman and bowler were seen exchanging words, with the Aussie batter doing most of the talking. It didn’t stop there as on the next ball, the pacer fired some words to the batter after bowling a 141kph good length ball.
Watch the incident between Rana and Labuschagne here:
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Overall, Harshit Rana bowled 8 overs on Day 1 and he conceded 18 runs while remaining wicketless.
Marnus Labuschagne remains unbeaten at the end of day 1
Labuschagne has been going through a lean patch in Test cricket and was under pressure heading into the Adelaide Test. There were talks in Australian media that he was set to get dropped if he failed in the Adelaide Test.
The 30-year-old failed badly in the first innings of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy opener in Perth as he was dismissed for 52-ball 2. Also, in the second innings, he shouldered arms to a Jasprit Bumrah delivery and was dismissed for 3 runs.
Heading into the second Test match, Labuschagne had registered just 123 runs in his last 10 Test innings with 90 of those runs coming in one innings against New Zealand.
However, he took confidence from his past heroics at the Adelaide Oval as he averaged 71.75 at the venue and batted quite well in the pink-ball Test against India.
The batter showed some good strokeplay and wasn’t just trying to defend the balls. He smashed 3 fours on Day 1 of the second Test and remained unbeaten at stumps (20 runs off 67 balls).
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