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Immovable Marnus mauls depleted Black Caps

Queenslander scores his fourth century from five Tests this summer as a New Zealand side shorn of five star players toils hard at the SCG

Australia's newest batting find Marnus Labuschagne has begun 2020 in the same manner as he completed 2019 – as the predominant run scorer in Test cricket.

Having ended the previous calendar year as the only Test batter to top 1000 runs (1104 from 11 matches), Labuschagne became the first to reach triple-figures in 2020 with a typically assured and unbeaten innings against a ravaged and occasionally ragged New Zealand.

On a day that began amid high drama as the Black Caps team selection was thrown into disarray by illness and intrigue, Australia battled to break the shackles against some modest but disciplined seam bowling and ended day one on 3-283 with Matthew Wade also not out on 22.

The centrepiece of Australia's batting, as they chase a clean sweep of the three-match Domain Series against their near neighbours and an undefeated Test summer, was the 156-run third-wicket partnership between Labuschagne and his friend and mentor, Steve Smith.

But just as he seemed destined to emulate his junior partner and post his first century of the summer, Smith's concentration lapsed, and he was dismissed for his fourth score of 35-plus for the Test season that will likely end without him posting a ton.

Smith overcomes slow start to post half-century

Smith’s ongoing battle against the short-pitched bowling strategy so successfully deployed against him by the NZ seamers saw him spend 45 minutes and face 39 deliveries before he scored his first run, the quickly taken single off his chief tormentor Neil Wagner bringing a rousing cheer from the day one crowd of 36,420.

By contrast, Labuschagne – who entered the 2019-20 home summer without a Test hundred to his name – completed his fourth century in five matches, a feat that has only been surpassed in an Australia season by Ricky Ponting (with five centuries from six Tests in 2005-06).

And while there's been more than a dozen players to have matched Labuschagne’s output with four hundreds in an Australian summer, only Doug Walters (1968-69) and Smith (2014-15) along with India's Virat Kohli (also in 2014-15) have achieved the feat in fewer matches than the Queenslander's five.

Mighty Marnus continues run-scoring spree at SCG

Labuschagne's rise and rise as Australia's most consistently productive Test number three since ex-skipper Ponting might have surprised many given he was far from a fixture in the starting XI a year ago, but today's innings carried little or no shock value.

Largely that's because of the form the 25-year-old has repeatedly produced since being recalled to Australia's Test outfit as a concussion substitute for Steve Smith during last year's Ashes series in the UK, which paved the way for him to become 2019's leading Test run scorer.

But it was also partly a product of the turmoil that gripped the already dispirited Black Caps in the days, and then the hours before the third Domain Series Test got underway at the SCG this morning.

As a result of the viral illness that laid low captain Kane Williamson, batter Henry Nicholls and spinner Mitchell Santner – as well as the hand injury suffered by Trent Boult and the decision to omit his fellow seamer Tim Southee – New Zealand fielded five new players from the Melbourne Test a week earlier.

Smith laughs after taking 39 balls to get off the mark

It's not an unprecedented level of upheaval from one Test match to another during a series.

In the wake of Australia's humiliating loss to South Africa at Hobart in 2016, not only did the national selectors axe Joe Burns, Adam Voges, Callum Ferguson, Peter Nevill and Joe Mennie for Matthew Renshaw, Peter Handscomb, Nic Maddinson, Matthew Wade and Jackson Bird, the panel's chair (Rod Marsh) also fell on his sword.

There has also been swift responses to crises that have brought four changes to Australia's line-up, most recently the 'homework' incident during the 2013 India tour and fall-out from the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa almost two years ago.

However, the circumstances that brought about such wide-scale change to the Black Caps' team was so unexpected and unpredictable the completion of their team sheet in the hour leading to the coin toss resembled the recent rate of nameplate changes on the office door of Australia’s Prime Minister.

Jubilant Labuschagne brings up Test century No.4

Perhaps the most symbolic amendment as the Black Caps medical staff passed prognoses on the ill and hoped the contagion would not spread further was the recall of Jeet Raval.

The opener had been axed after scoring just 1 and 1 in the first Test at Perth Stadium, which meant he had averaged a paltry 7.3 from his previous nine Test innings.

But rather than return to the top of the order, after his position was filled by reserve wicketkeeper Tom Blundell who scored a century in his maiden innings as an opener in the preceding Melbourne Test, Raval has been installed in the pivotal number three spot.

Given the state of flux that had settled upon the NZ dressing room, it might almost have served as a relief when stand-in skipper Tom Lathan lost the toss and led his barely recognisable outfit on to the field.

Labuschagne goes large at the SCG

The new-look New Zealanders represented a stark contrast to the Australia team that remained unchanged from Melbourne and has made a solitary personnel switch for the entire Test summer – James Pattinson in for Josh Hazlewood, who suffered a hamstring injury in Perth.

Immediately, the absence of Boult and Southee lent a markedly more benign air to the Black Caps bowling as Matt Henry (in his first Test of the campaign) shared the new-ball with medium-pacer Colin de Grandhomme, who operated at barely 120kph.

Yet it was the allrounder who looked most likely to gain a breakthrough with his late swing and fuller length, and did so when he had Joe Burns caught at slip for 18 after an hour of play.

Since falling three runs short of a century in his first innings after being recalled alongside David Warner at the top of the order against Pakistan in Brisbane, Burns has posted scores of 4, 9, 53, 0 and 35 before today's dismissal.

Smith's first run met with cheers from SCG crowd

If that has frustrated the Queenslander, it mirrors the anguish written across Warner's face when he fell for 45 – his fourth score between 35 and 50 since his epic triple century against Pakistan at Adelaide – in the over immediately after lunch today.

It was not only the exasperation of making a start but failing to push on that left Warner with his head thrown back in disbelief.

There was also the manner in which he perished, sweating on a short-pitched delivery from Neil Wagner that sat up from the slowish surface before the opener tugged it directly to de Grandhomme stationed at leg gully.

Warner's disbelief at having fallen in such innocuous fashion was shared almost four hours later by Smith, who understood he had yet another Test century for the taking before he also succumbed to de Grandhomme's gentle swing.

SCG honours firefighters with a minute’s applause

Having scored 63, and as the morale of the embattled Kiwis slumped faster than the setting summer sun, Smith hung his bat at a delivery that perhaps bounced more than he expected and took the edge and then a looping parabola to Ross Taylor at slip.

It was not a dissimilar dismissal to that of Burns, and all three Australia’s batsmen who finished the day in the dressing room rather than out in the middle must surely have looked upon the irresistible Labuschagne with envy as well as admiration.

Australia XI: David Warner, Joe Burns, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Matthew Wade, Travis Head, Tim Paine (c, wk), Pat Cummins, James Pattinson, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon

New Zealand XI: Tom Latham (c), Tom Blundell, Jeet Raval, Ross Taylor, Glenn Phillips, BJ Watling (wk), Colin de Grandhomme, Todd Astle, Will Somerville, Matt Henry, Neil Wagner

Domain Test Series v New Zealand

Australia squad: David Warner, Joe Burns, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Matthew Wade, Travis Head, Tim Paine (c, wk), Pat Cummins, Mitch Starc, Nathan Lyon, James Pattinson, Michael Neser, Mitchell Swepson

New Zealand: Todd Astle, Tom Blundell, Trent Boult, Colin de Grandhomme, Matt Henry, Kyle Jamieson, Tom Latham, Henry Nicholls, Glenn Phillips, Jeet Raval, Mitchell Santner, Tim Southee, Ross Taylor, BJ Watling, Neil Wagner, Kane Williamson (c)

First Test: Australia won by 296 runs

Second Test: Australia won by 247 runs

Third Test: January 3-7, SCG (Seven, Fox & Kayo)