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Australia's star batter Marnus Labuschagne finally revealed the reason behind dozing off during Australia's batting on Day 3 of the ongoing World Test Championship (WTC) final against India.
Team India staged an impressive fightback with the bat riding on Ajinkya Rahane and Shardul Thakur's resilient knocks who steered team to a respectable total of 296. Ajinkya Rahane got on to Australian bowlers' nerves scored a brilliant 89 off 129 while Shardul displayed his all-round skills and scored an exceptional fifty (51 off 109) to rescue India from a precarious 152/6.
With a commanding lead of 173, Australian openers David Warner and Usman Khawaja walked down in the middle in a bid to score big. But Mohammed Siraj showed no mercy to Warner and sent him packing for a paltry score of 1 on the third ball of the fourth over. Umesh Yadav caused another dent to Australia and dismissed Khawaja for 13 off 39.
After Warner's dismissal Labuschagne was supposed to walk down in the middle but he was spotted taking a nap in the dressing room with his feet up. His musings broke when a loud noise from fans came from the ground which saw Labuschagne gathering himself in a jiffy and running down towards the pitch. The incident took the social media by storm.
Here's the video….
Labuschagne breaks silence on dozing off during Australia's innings
After the end of Day 3, Labuschagne revealed the reason behind taking a short nap during Australia's second innings. He said that he was just trying to rest his eyes and calm his nerves a little bit. The star Australian no.3 batter also said that one can't watch game all the time.
“I was just resting my eyes between balls and just relaxing. I was trying to calm my nerves a little bit, you can’t watch the game all the time, I got up there and was awake pretty soon. I didn’t have too many rests there when Siraj banged that first one in,” said Labuschagne.
Talking about Australia's innings, after the dismissals of Warner and Khawaja, Ravindra Jadeja didn't let their batters heave a sigh in relief, not even for a moment, and got rid of the first innings' centurions Steve Smith (34) and Travis Head (18).
At the close of Day 3's play, Australia's scoreboard read 123/4 with a 296-run lead. Labuschagne remained unbeaten for 41 off 118 balls whereas Green scored seven runs.
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