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Australia head coach, Andrew McDonald, has backed old guard Usman Khawaja and out of form Marnus Labuschagne after they failed to defend their World Test Championship (WTC) at Lord’s against South Africa. Labuschagne opened in the WTC final against South Africa and scored 17 and 22 in both the innings. “He’s a big part of the future of the team. Anyone that averages 45 or 46 in Test cricket at that age is important,” McDonald was quoted by Fox Cricket.“We’ve got older players who are closer to the end than the start. We’ve got some younger players that are coming in, and you definitely want those guys that have, I think, 60-odd Test matches.
“If he can get his game in good order for the next four or five years, he can underpin that batting order. But at the moment, he’d be disappointed with the returns.“He’s missed out on big scores. He threatened at the MCG (when he) got a pair of 70s, and, you know, if they had been a pair of hundreds, the conversation shifts as well.“But we’re confident that he could return to his best and hence (that is) why we keep picking him. It is at what point do we stop picking him?”
On 39-year-old Khawaja, McDonald said: “He’s on contract, he’s an important player.” “He gives us stability at his best at the top. And we like to look at our players at their best.“No doubt, a couple of failures here and people then start to talk about maybe it’s the end. I don’t see an end date with the way he’s training, the way he’s preparing, the way he’s moving. He went back to Shield cricket, got 100 last [season]. So I think he’s got plenty of runs left in him. It’ll come down to his inner drive and the way he prepares.“It was a bit the same with Davey as well. The way he moved, we saw some positives in that. We knew that the runs were around the corner. We feel as though Usman’s got a big part to play.”
