Much has been written and said about Marnus Labuschagne’s statistical decline over the last few years. Before Australia’s recently completed tour of South Africa, many called for Marnus to be axed from the team, and he had already lost his place in the 50-over side ahead of the Test series. Under intense pressure to perform, Marnus struggled in the series, scoring just 131 runs from six innings at an average of 21.83.
Whether it was right or wrong to take him on the tour, it seems inevitable that he will be left out of the XI for Australia’s next Test match, against New Zealand in Perth from December 9th. While many commentators have argued that Marnus should never have gone on the tour, it should be remembered that he was dropped from the side during Australia’s tour of the West Indies in mid-2025, and then recalled for the 2025/26 Ashes series on the back of encouraging first-class results. He didn’t exactly star in the Ashes, but he was Australia’s fourth-highest scorer, with two half-centuries.
That’s a long way of saying: There were valid reasons to recall and persist with Marnus for the top-end series against Bangladesh, which preceded the tour of South Africa, as well as on the African tour, especially considering the dearth of top-order talent with which to replace him.
An unwanted record
Unfortunately for Marnus, the runs just didn’t return. During the 2-1 series loss to the Proteas, he reached an unwanted milestone: 49 innings in a row without a Test century – a new record for the number of consecutive innings a batter in Australia’s top four has waited to reach three figures. And his wait goes on…
For the record, Marnus’ last Test century came in July 2023, against England in the fourth Ashes Test at Old Trafford. To further illustrate his sharp decline in recent years, remember that Marnus was once the world’s top-ranked batter, averaging over 60 after 30 Tests. In his last 38 matches, he has averaged less than half that (28.43).
The aim of what follows is not to speculate as to why Marnus’ career has seemingly nose-dived in the last three years, for technical or personal reasons – I do find it interesting, though, that his decline began not long after the arrival of his first child.
The purpose of this article is rather to simply implement Relative Runs (ЯR) to demonstrate how Marnus’ recent output can be explored or explained in terms of the stat. Hopefully, this sheds both an interesting light on Marnus’ recent form as well as how to use Relative Runs across a section of a batting career.
For this analysis, we are first going to look at the last 49 innings of Marnus’ career – the block since his last ton, which many have argued holds more than enough reasons as to why he shouldn’t be in the Test team at all.
In those 49 innings, Marnus scored 1,094 runs, with just nine 50s and a top score of 90. His average in this period is 24.31.
These are damning enough numbers on their own for a first-drop and occasional opener. On face value, you can see why many have called for his head, and it’s terribly hard to defend that record over such a lengthy sample. But what can Relative Runs tell us about this stretch of innings? And first, why would we even employ it in this case?
A global decline in batting?
Zooming out a bit: It’s a fact that global batting averages dipped around the time Marnus’ Test career began in 2018. The combined global Test batting average for the eight years before 2018 (spanning 2010-17) was ~33.5. In 2018, there was a sharp drop-off to just a tick over 26, which then increased to around 30 in 2022 and then dipped again to around 29.5 for the period from 2024 to the present.
There are many theories for why this drop-off occurred: Bowler-friendly conditions, aggressive and results-oriented styles of play, as well as the wobble-seam revolution are all factors.
Many analysts have noted, fairly, that we should couch the way we view runs in terms of how many runs batters are typically scoring. If you’re averaging 40 in a batter-friendly era where the global average is closer to 35, that’s less impressive than averaging 40 when batters are averaging around 25, and so on.
This is precisely where Relative Runs can be useful and interesting because Relative Runs indicate how much more or less a batter is scoring than the mean score of batters around them – that is, their teammates in an innings.
If, for example, Marnus has actually been scoring close to or over the runs his peers have been scoring in tricky conditions, well, that will be reflected in his Relative Runs scores. So what do the numbers actually say?
From runs to Relative Runs
In his last 49 innings – as mentioned – he has scored 1,094 runs, but -174.65 Relative Runs, which come out to -3.56 Relative Runs per innings.
These numbers are damning in a new way. Remember, a Relative Runs score of 0 means a batter has scored (or averaged) exactly the Par score of his peers, the mean score of all batters in an innings.
To be in negative numbers means his scores in the period have been below not just the scores of specialist batters, but the mean of all players in the Australian team. Specifically, -3.56 Relative Runs per innings means Marnus has been scoring less than 3.5 runs fewer than the mean score of all Australian players, on average across his last 49 innings.
Let’s be kind to him and include his last ton and blow this sample out to a nice round 50 innings… In his last 50 innings, Marnus scored 1,205 runs, which accounted for -93.51 Relative Runs or -1.87 Relative Runs per innings.
Even including his last ton in 2023, across his last 50 innings, Marnus has thus averaged almost 2 runs fewer than the mean score of all his teammates per innings.
For any specialist batter to be in negative numbers is not good, but it’s especially poor for your No.3 to bear these numbers. Ideally, your top 4 or 5 batters are all in positive numbers, driving the run-scoring for the side, not trailing behind the team’s average scorers. What’s more, 50 innings is a huge sample to assess a batter. In many cases, batters come into the Australian team and are judged on merely a handful to a dozen knocks, if they are very lucky.
When we home in on Marnus’ recent form, the numbers are even worse, however. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given his recent struggles in South Africa.
Marnus last scored a half-century during the last Ashes series. Since that score of 65 in Brisbane, he’s batted 16 times for Australia. In those 16 innings, he’s scored 301 runs (avg. 18.81) with -80.49 Relative Runs at -5.03 Relative Runs per innings.
As you can see, his recent form is not pretty reading. His Relative Runs score per innings is below -5, meaning he averages less than 5 runs fewer than the mean score of his peers across all those innings. To put this another way: If the team is averaging 25 runs per head per innings, Marnus could be expected to score 20; if it were 15, he’d be expected to score just 10.
| Runs | Average | ЯR/Inn. | |
| Last 50 innings | 1,205 | 26.20 | -1.87 |
| Last 49 innings | 1,094 | 24.31 | -3.56 |
| Last 16 innings | 301 | 18.81 | -5.03 |
If an argument in Marnus’ favour were to be that his recent low scores are at least on par with his peers, Relative Runs disproves this is the case across his most recent run of innings, as well as across his last 50 innings more broadly.
On face value, Marnus’ numbers have been very poor since his last ton, and especially recently. Relative Runs only adds depth to this point rather than debunking it.
What we do gain from Relative Runs in this context, if not a counterargument, is a useful insight into just how much he’s been underperforming compared with his peers, as well as a great toolkit, both lexical and numerical, to present the point convincingly.
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