Haven’t seen enough of Marnus Labuschagne perform consistently in ODIs: George Bailey

Marnus Labuschagne. (Photo by Lee Warren/Gallo Images/Getty Images)

Former Australia skipper and chief selector George Bailey voiced his stance on Marnus Labuschagne’s exclusion from the ODI World Cup preliminary squad. Notably, the selection committee announced an 18-member squad for the marquee ODI event which is slated to be played in India from October 5.  

Ahead of the ODI World Cup, the Aussies named a preliminary squad, however, one of the exclusions from the setup that grabbed a lot of eyeballs was that of batter Labuschagne’s. Bailey stated that the batter has failed to be consistent in the One-Day format. However, he also added that Labuschagne is likely to play a few matches for Australia A in order to focus on white-ball cricket.

“We know Marnus at his best is good enough to hold down a spot in the one-day team, we just haven’t seen enough of it consistently in the role that we’d like him to do. We’ve been really clear with Marnus; he’s going to be part of some Australia A games at the same time so he can focus on some white-ball cricket,” Bailey told reporters.

Prior to the World Cup, the Aussies will play South Africa in a multi-format series which includes five ODI matches that will act as a dress rehearsal for the big event in India. With this, Bailey added that the squad for the South Africa series will have an edge over the others to make the cut in the World Cup squad.

“Clearly the squad that we’ve got going to South Africa have the front-running for that. But Marnus, the age that he is and the skillset he has, we’ve got no doubt that he’ll play a part in one-day cricket in the future. I couldn’t give you a time on when that will be, but certainly we know at his best he can play a really important role,” Bailey added.

Australia’s preliminary 18-member World Cup sqaud:

Pat Cummins (c), Sean Abbott, Ashton Agar, Alex Carey, Nathan Ellis, Cameron Green, Aaron Hardie, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Tanveer Sangha, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, David Warner, Adam Zampa.