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Ashes 2019: captains on Steve Smith and drawn second Test – video

Marnus Labuschagne fulfils his role as being a great for the day

This article is more than 4 years old

The first concussion substitute in Tests slotted in so seamlessly that he reached 50 and was hit on the helmet by Jofra Archer

Cricket does not like substitutes. Ring-in fielders come and go all day but not without muttering about how they are deployed. The limited-overs Supersub remains a derided innovation. So many fabled incidents involve players coming out to do what their medical condition suggested they should not try and should not succeed at. Piles of anonymous matches have been all but decided by injury in a first hour or a vital later stage.

So when Marnus Labuschagne became the first concussion substitute in Test cricket, for Steve Smith, it felt weird – like potting the eight-ball and having a pool hustler tell you to take the shot again. It was a relaxation of rules in a way that used not to be possible.

If it felt weird to watch, imagine how it felt for Labuschagne, the smiley, affable adopted Queenslander who had played a couple of Tests before turning 25 two months ago. Australia had notionally named a squad of 12 for Lord’s and he was not in it. He had been kicking back for four days as part of the back-up troop, running gloves and raiding the dessert trolley. Then, all of a sudden, on day five of a Test he was in.

The concussion substitute is predicated on “like for like” replacements, as decided by the match referee. This concept is absurd when the sub is replacing the literal and statistical best since Bradman. When Smith was hurt in the first innings he had nearly brought up 26 centuries in 98 Test knocks, by far the closest to Bradman’s 29 in 80.

Imagine being pretty good at what you do, even very good. But you are on the young side, you are learning. Then someone calls out across the dressing room. Hey! You there! You’re going to be the best player in the world for this afternoon. And you’re going to face the one bowler who took him down.

That was Jofra Archer, burning gas at more than 150km per hour, threatening the badge of the helmet and the edge of the bat in equal measure. On walking to the crease Labuschagne was a like-for-like replacement for Smith in that he was hit by Archer, second ball, picking up right where Smith had left off.

Labuschagne did not have time to duck. He sensed it coming and was bending his knees but was only halfway through a flinch of the head when the ball smashed into his grille. It hit the bottom bar of the metal – had his head lifted slightly he would have been carried off with a broken jaw. Instead he bounced up like a cartoon from under an anvil.

The situation was already tense. Australia were two wickets down with 42 overs left to survive for a draw. Archer had already removed the vastly experienced David Warner and Usman Khawaja, pitching up and moving the ball to force each to nick. A third wicket would prompt a tailspin.

Through six of the next seven overs the batsman was pinned as if Archer was a lepidopterist. He was hit, he was hurried. A couple of times he was harried into an injudicious push but mostly his judgment was immaculate. As one bouncer seared at him he curved his spine to lean out of its way, watching it pass so closely by that it probably gave him a chest wax.

Yet when the length was full, he pushed down the ground. When the line was wrong he flicked runs square. As Archer finally began to run short of air, the batsman drove on the up through cover for four. When he got an inside-edge plus overthrows, Labuschagne scored five off his box. When Archer was done, he was still there, 26 not out, the Smith that you have when you are not having a Smith.

The toughness was as remarkable as the poise; old boots stitched together in a designer cut. England’s main threat had been seen off and Australia were within 28 overs of safety. Only one more wicket had fallen.

Labuschagne would collect 59 for himself, 12 overs from safety, before he was out with a sweep from Jack Leach deflecting off short-leg for an unlucky catch.

A rcher returned to the crease the ball after Labuschagne departed, as if in tribute. No Steve Smith or Steve Smith substitute has failed to cross fifty in this year’s Ashes. The drama was not quite over yet: Leach picked up Matthew Wade, then Archer combined with a freakish Joe Denly catch to get rid of Tim Paine.

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But even as England toiled away under the floodlights, crowding the bat with as many as eight catchers, desperately searching for more breakthroughs to level the series, there was always the sense that time was against them.

They finished up within four wickets of a win but Labuschagne was the one who had made sure they could not get any closer. Asked to be Steve Smith for a day, he had done enough.

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