Marnus Labuschagne Axed from Australia’s ODI Squad Ahead of World Cup
Marnus Labuschagne’s once-gleaming international career has hit its sharpest wobble yet, with the right-hander axed from Australia’s ODI squad for the tours of Zimbabwe and South Africa – even as selectors insist his Test future remains alive.
The 32-year-old, crowned the ICC’s No 1 Test batter as recently as 2023, now finds himself on the outer in the format that was supposed to help lock down his all-format status. He was one of five players cut from the side that faced Bangladesh in Australia’s most recent ODI in June, a clear sign that the white-ball hierarchy is looking beyond him with next year’s World Cup in mind.
World Cup plans leave no room
Australia named a 17-man ODI group for the six matches in Zimbabwe and South Africa later this month, tours framed explicitly as preparation for the ODI World Cup to be staged in those same countries late next year.
For Labuschagne, there was no seat on the plane.
Chair of selectors George Bailey was blunt about the squeeze.
“Marn, again, he’s played some really important one-day cricket for us at his best. That looks a certain way. But the way that squad and team is structuring up, there just wasn’t space for him,” Bailey said.
The message was clear: this was a World Cup build, and others have surged ahead.
“There’s not a whole lot of games,” Bailey said. “The opportunity that’s well-deserved and awarded to some of those other players to continue building out their roles and their performances in those games would be really important.”
The pressure has been building for some time. After scaling the peak of the Test rankings last year, Labuschagne’s returns have fallen away. He has averaged under 30 in Tests since that high-water mark, and in the latest ICC rankings he has slipped to equal 38th. His most recent body of work – an Ashes campaign at 25 on average, followed by scores of 1, 31 and 4 in Bangladesh – has only deepened the scrutiny.
Red-ball door still ajar
Yet Bailey drew a firm line between white-ball ruthlessness and red-ball judgment.
“It was a one-day cricket conversation,” he said of the omission. The ODI squad, he stressed, is “a pretty important tool for us” with the World Cup in mind, but it is not a verdict on Labuschagne’s Test worth.
Australia will face South Africa in a three-Test series starting 9 October, a marquee assignment that looms large for a batter fighting to reassert himself. The Test squad is still to be named, with selectors poring over conditions, roles and fitness updates before committing.
“It’s just about not having to make a decision until you need to make a decision,” Bailey said. He spoke of “still working closely just around as much information as we can around what potentially the wickets we might expect to get in South Africa and what those conditions might look like,” as well as “some of the fitness around some guys” and “landing on the number of players and roles.”
Labuschagne knows this dance. He flirted with the fringes of the Test side ahead of last summer’s Ashes before a strong start to the Sheffield Shield forced his way back into the XI. This time, though, the script is harsher. He will not have the chance to press his case for Queensland before the Test squad is announced later this month, leaving selectors to weigh his record against his recent slide without fresh domestic evidence.
The safety net of runs at home will not be there. Only his bank of work and their faith in his temperament will be.
New blood, new direction
While one era star wrestles with uncertainty, two fresh faces continue to ride the wave of opportunity.
Oliver Peake, the 19-year-old Victorian left-hander who became the youngest specialist batter to debut for Australia’s ODI side earlier this year, has been backed again. So too has Joel Davies, the 22-year-old NSW allrounder who earned his first caps in the T20 series against Bangladesh in June.
“For Ollie and Joel, who we rate very highly, it’s another fantastic opportunity and a further chance for them to continue their exposure and growth in the Australian team,” Bailey said.
Their elevation underlines the shift. Australia are not tinkering at the edges of their white-ball squad; they are shaping it with a World Cup in mind, and they are prepared to leave big names behind to do it.
Labuschagne now stands at a crossroads. Out of the ODI frame, short of recent Test runs, and with no Shield audition available before the South Africa squad is locked in, his next chapter with the Baggy Green will be decided in a selection room rather than in the middle.
For a player who once made himself impossible to ignore, the question now is stark: can he convince the selectors, and the game itself, that his best days in national colours are not already behind him?
