How McDonald thinks Marnus can get back to his best

Australia coach Andrew McDonald has highlighted the one thing that he thinks is holding Marnus Labuschagne back.

The Aussie No. 3 has shown glimpses of his best this Ashes series early on, but has regressed in his past five innings as he’s failed to pass 20 runs in any of those attempts.

Having lit up the early domestic season with five centuries in eight innings for Queensland, McDonald thinks the one thing he saw from Labuschagne in the lead-up compared to now was his intent to score.

With a simple mindset shift of looking to score again, McDonald thinks that Labuschagne can get busier and begin to make runs freely again.

"I think with Marn - and he won't mind me saying this - it's probably when he loses his intent to score, he gets himself in bad positions," he said.

"His Shield work early in the season and even his one-day batting was outstanding, and it's when he's putting pressure back onto the bowlers and looking to score. There's periods where he goes back into his shell and really trusts his defence and I think within that, creates a little bit of error in his game.

"He's working on it, we saw early in the summer how he played. It's a difficult game and batting on some of these surfaces is tricky. It's about having that mindset of going out there and scoring runs and we've been consistent in that view from our end.

"We think it's a mindset piece and his intent to score … we'd like to see him get busier in his innings. He still averages in the 40-plus in Test cricket, he's had a lean period, but he's a quality player.”

While he’s out of form, Labuschagne looks certain to hold onto his place in the Australian XI for the New Year’s Test against England at the SCG.

That fifth and final Test in Sydney begins on January 4 - listen to every ball LIVE on SEN - your home of cricket.