“For me, absolutely, I would love to captain Australia”: Marnus Labuschagne expresses his desire to lead Australian team in future

Australia’s ace batsman Marnus Labuschagne has expressed his desire to lead the Australian side in the future.

The Ashes 2021 is set to start from 8 December 2021 at the Gabba. Australia are currently holding the urn, and they would want to retain it, whereas the English side would want to take that away from them. The Australian Ashes squad is not out yet, and they will play an intra-squad game soon.

Tim Paine will lead the Aussie side in this series, and all the eyes will be on him. After the defeat against India last summer, this is the first-ever test series for Australia. Nobody expected India to win as they were constantly battling an insane amount of injuries, but they outperformed the Aussies. A lot of former cricketers and experts in Australia wanted Tim Paine to leave the job, but Justin Langer backed his captain.

Marnus Labuschagne expresses his desire to lead Australia

Tim Paine was appointed as the Aussie captain after the controversial sand-paper gate. He did a terrific job of binding the team together, and retaining the away Ashes in 2019 has been brilliant for him. After Tim Paine, Pat Cummins [current vice-captain] is the favourite to lead the side, whereas Smith is certainly an option as well.

However, in a recent interview with the Daily Telegraph, Marnus expressed his desire to lead Australia.

“For me, absolutely, I would love to captain Australia,” Marnus said.

“Everyone would love that. But for me, it’s about making sure I put the team first and when you’re talking about being a leader, that doesn’t necessarily mean you need the title. You can be a leader without the title and I think that’s the role I can play.”

Marnus Labuschagne in the #AUSvIND Test series so far:

47, 6, 48, 28, 91, 73, 108 (today)

👏👏👏 pic.twitter.com/QKooF5VSrt

— ICC (@ICC) January 15, 2021

In terms of numbers, Marnus is going to be Australia’s test ace in the future. He has scored 1185 test runs at an astonishing average of 60.80, with the help of 5 centuries and 10 half-centuries. In the current Sheffield Shield season, he has scored 317 runs at 52.83 for Queensland, whereas he has been a handy bowler too.