Can Australia afford to take Labuschagne back to the land of his birth?

Mackay: Close your eyes, feel the sea breeze on your face and smell the barbecued snags wafting across the ground, and Australia’s second Test against Bangladesh could almost be a stand-in for their first against South Africa.

Kingsmead in Durban, on South Africa’s eastern coast, is a good deal larger than Great Barrier Reef Arena, but its environs are not a million miles from Mackay.

From the point Mitchell Starc cut the Bangladesh top order to pieces with 6-12 , and certainly once the recalled Shoriful Islam (6-35) gave a fine impersonation of Marco Jansen to keep the tourists in the game, it was hard not to start thinking of the long-awaited trip to meet the Proteas in October.

The dilemma for Australia right now is whether they can reasonably take the Klerksdorp-born Marnus Labuschagne across the Indian Ocean to enjoy the braai. On current evidence, he looks likely to be easy meat for Jansen, Kagiso Rabada, and Lungi Ngidi.

Before this game, coach Andrew McDonald and captain Pat Cummins played public bad cop and good cop with Labuschagne. McDonald stressed that he needed “big runs” in the aftermath of Australia’s surprising defeat in Darwin. Cummins then wrapped a rhetorical arm around Labuschagne by trying a version of the advice that appears to have worked for Cameron Green (51 not out), who made an overdue hundred last week and played fluently again here.

“As a bowler, it feels like the margins are really small when someone like Marnus or Steve [Smith] are at their best form,” Cummins had said. “I’ve felt that the last couple of months.

“Last week was a bit of a blip. Our message to Marnus is, ‘You don’t need to reinvent the wheel after last week’.