Ashes: Marnus Labuschagne scores maiden Ashes ton

After waiting for almost a day, the crowd finally got the chance to stand up and applause a masterful inning by Marnus Labuschagne, to bring up his sixth test match century.

Although the English bowlers did not pick up enough wickets on the first day, the Australian batters still had to toil for every run they scored. This was shown in the inning that David Warner played and then replicated in Labuschagne’s inning.

The 27-year-old was brought on to the wicket earlier than he would have liked after Broad dismissed Marcus Harris for just three runs. The Australian scorecard looked dismal at the point; with seven overs in, they had scored just four runs and lost one wicket already.

Even David Warner looked to be in all sorts of trouble, and it felt as if a batting collapse was waiting to happen. That is when Labuschagne stepped up alongside Warner to put up a great partnership of 172 runs. Both the players brought up their fifties, and Warner, the aggressive of the two, also went on to score a quickfire 95 in some 160 oddballs. However, he missed out on another century as he was dismissed by Ben Stokes in the 65th over.

Marnus continued to play in his own way and knit together another partnership alongside Steve Smith to negotiate the day’s final session. Batting on 95, Labuschagne looked a little tentative, which led to the century eluding him on the first day.

On the very next morning, he stroked one past the slips though to bring up what was a well-fought hundred in the testing conditions. Soon he was dismissed by Robinson at the score of 103 in 305 balls.