Labuschagne reveals his mom’s premonition before the match says ‘Mum had a feeling I would play’
Labuschagne’s match-winning knock against South Africa was an example of what difference can a mom’s premonition make as the right-hander revealed after the match that his mom predicted that he would be playing in the first ODI no matter what and it proved to be right as Labuschagne played a match-winning innings after coming in as a concussion substitute for Cameron Green who was hit on the helmet while batting. He along with Ashton Agar got Australia out of deep trouble when the team was reduced to 113-7 while chasing 223 for victory
Labuschagne Reacts
“She’s an amazing woman,” Labuschagne said of his mother’s premonition. “She stayed for the whole game. Even though I wasn’t playing for the first three-and-a-half hours of the game. She had a feeling. She was adamant when I came here that I was going to play this game. And I told her, ‘I’ve seen the team, Mum, I’m not in the team’. She just got a feeling and, once again, she’s right. It’s hard to describe, to be honest.”
Batting first South Africa got off to a bad start as the Proteas lost five wickets with 100 runs on the board with only the captain Bavuma standing tall amidst all the chaos at the other end. He was batting fluently but was in search of a partner to stitch a partnership and he found one in fast bowling all-rounder Marco Jansen.
The duo added 57 runs for the sixth wicket giving some sort of flexibility to the South African batting innings but that wasn’t enough as the innings came to an end soon after Jansen got out and it was up to Bavuma to take the team to a respectable total which he did by scoring an unbeaten century which took the score to 222.
Down Memory Lane
This is not the first time Labuschagne has done something of this sort. The right-hander made his debut in test cricket as a concussion substitute when he replaced Steve Smith in the second test of the 2019 Ashes series after Smith was hit on the helmet in an attempt to duck a bouncer from Jofra Archer.
Labuschagne was initially left out of the ODI squad to tour South Africa and Australia’s provisional 15-man World Cup squad having averaged just 22.30 and struck at a lowly 69.87 over his previous 14 ODI innings dating back to April 2022, and had admitted he “wasn’t too shocked” he was dropped, when speaking in the aftermath of his sensational 80 not out on return.
