Marnus Labuschagne has been urged to take a bolder approach to India’s potent pace attack as coach Andrew McDonald insisted the out-of-form batter is the “player we need” for the Test No.3 spot.

Labuschagne’s sixth and seventh single-figure scores from his last eight innings have put the right-hander under the microscope after Australia lost the opening Test of a home summer for the first time since 2018.

The 30-year-old fell lbw in both innings amid suffocating new-ball spells from the visiting seamers, but it was his inability to score that McDonald identified as a primary area of concern.

“We look at the way he plays, and when he’s at his best – and when we’ve seen him at his best he’s shown great intent at the crease,” McDonald said of the former world No.1 Test batter who has 11 Test hundreds to his name.

“That’s an ongoing discussion and that ebbs and flows in players’ careers, so at the moment he’s in one of those patches and no doubt he’ll be getting critiqued externally.

“But internally we’re really confident that, at his best, he’s the player that we need.”

Neither McDonald nor captain Pat Cummins have flagged major changes to Australia’s XI for the second Test in Adelaide; “The same people in that changeroom are the same people that will be in Adelaide,” said the coach.

Labuschagne, who had vowed pre-series to wear down India’s bowlers over the course of the five-Test series, scored two runs in 95 minutes in Australia’s first innings in Perth.

“I think the way we play, we’re at our best when we’re playing the long game,” he said last week.

“We understand that getting them back for their second and third spells, putting them under pressure and letting them come to us and us putting pressure back on them through overs in the field and time in the game, especially over a five-Test series, that’s really important.”

Whether Labuschagne can recalibrate that approach after Australia’s humbling first-up effort in Perth could have a major bearing on the series. 

While he has never been an all-guns-blazing first-drop, the Queenslander’s scoring rate has gradually receded at the same rate as his batting average in recent years.

The latter mark peaked at 63.43 in his 14th Test after scoring 215 against New Zealand in the 2020 New Year’s Test. That match was also the highest point for his strike-rate, which then stood at 56.52.

The pace at which he scores his runs has since slowed considerably. In his last 40 Test innings, stretching back to the start of the 2022-23 home series against South Africa, Labuschagne’s strike-rate is 44.18.

His scoring “intent”, as McDonald referred to, also appears to have diminished.

When Labuschagne was Australia’s leading run-scorer during India’s last Test tour of Australia in 20201, data provided by Opta shows he attacked more than half the balls he faced (56 per cent).

By last home summer, that figure dropped to 41 per cent for the Tests against Pakistan and West Indies.

In the first Test against India he attacked only 22 per cent of the 57 deliveries he faced.

“It’s always a combination of factors with the mindset,” said McDonald when asked how Labuschagne could return to form. “There’s some technical aspects to that also within the mindset play.

“We’re really confident he can turn that around.”

None could accuse Labuschagne of failing to put in the work.

On Monday morning, as Australia warmed up in the practice nets ahead of resuming their doomed fourth-innings run chase, Labuschagne was padded up and patiently waited to bat despite his involvement in the match ending the previous evening when he was dismissed on his fifth ball.

But McDonald acknowledged there is only so much extensive net sessions can do to prepare his top-order for the challenge presented by the Jasprit Bumrah-led attack.

Perth player-of-the-match Bumrah in particular confounded the hosts, snaring eight victims for the match and appearing a wicket-taking threat almost every time he bowled with the new ball in both innings.

McDonald wants his batters to work out methods to put pressure back on the right-armer.

“It’s always in our preparation that we’ve got that factored in – release points, trajectories, those types of things. We are covering those off but it’s very hard to replicate Bumrah,” said McDonald.

“There not two of him so it’s like slips catches, we try our best to replicate those but in practice they don’t look like they do in a game.

“You get as close to that as you possibly can (but) it’s a challenge.

“… to me it’s about how you’re going to score runs off Jasprit.

“It’s one thing sitting there going, ‘How am I going to defend the good balls?’, but the art of putting pressure back on him and knowing where you’re going to score off him (is important).

“And that’s our definition of method, how you’re going to score your runs against a certain type of bowler. The boys, they were clear coming in (to the first Test).

“But it’s one thing being clear coming in and obviously once you get into the heat of battle maintaining your mindset around all of that.

“And that’s going to be our challenge.”

NRMA Insurance Men’s Test Series v India

First Test: India won by 295 runs

Second Test: December 6-10: Adelaide Oval, 3pm AEDT (D/N)

Third Test: December 14-18: The Gabba, Brisbane, 11.20am AEDT

Fourth Test: December 26-30: MCG, Melbourne, 10.30am AEDT

Fifth Test: January 3-7: SCG, Sydney, 10.30am AEDT

Australia squad: (first Test only) Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey (wk), Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Nathan McSweeney, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc

India squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Devdutt Padikkal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant, Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar. Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed, Yash Dayal