If South Africa's A team had a mind to utter a few words to Marnus Labuschagne in his native tongue attempting to exploit some first game jitters, it had little effect.

Labuschagne was born in Klerksdorp, 130 kilometres southwest of Johannesburg, and had to learn English from scratch when he moved to Brisbane as a 10-year-old with his family.

"I spoke mainly only Afrikaans," the Australia A batsman told media in Bengaluru on Sunday. "Over the years I've been learning English and my speaking has gotten a lot better. I wouldn't say as much for my spelling."

More than a decade on in his first match for an Australian representative side, Labuschagne showed why he's now regarded as one of his adopted country's most promising one-day batsmen.

The 24-year-old expertly handled the Proteas spin threats on a turning Bengaluru surface on Saturday, crafting a 67-ball 65 and playing the perfect second fiddle to century-making skipper Travis Head.

One boundary stood out from the six Labuschagne struck as being, dare one say it, almost Virat Kohli-esque. Off a delivery turning away from him, the right-hander maneuvered his body to reach out and slap left-arm spinner Senuran Muthusamy inside-out over wide long-off for four.

His knock helped propel Australia A to a 32-run victory, a needed boost after their tour-opening loss to India A.

"We had a big chat after the first game," said Labuschagne. "It was good to come into this game and be able to rectify the wrongs from the in the first game.

"It's always good to contribute to a side that wins. I was able to do my job, unfortunately I couldn't go on with it at the end there but it was good to get the team into a good position."

While his profile is not as big as many of his teammates in the strong Australia A squad, Labuschagne has quietly pushed his case at domestic level in recent years.

He was the JLT Sheffield Shield's second leading run-scorer last summer with 795 runs at an average of 40, helping Queensland to their first four-day title in six years while he's also been a standout in 50-over cricket, earning player-of-the-tournament honours in the 2016-17 domestic one-day tournament when the Bulls finished runners up.

While Labuschagne is arguably a shade unfortunate not to be selected for the four-day component of the A tour, he told cricket.com.au earlier this month he's got the "chills" thinking about how close a potential international berth could be.

"I want to be that player; I want to be the person that they're looking for," he said. "My job is to make sure I do that talking with the bat, ball and in the field."

Speaking on Sunday, he added: "It's been great to have a good Shield season and I've had two good seasons in the one-day competition.

"I'm learning all the time and trying to learn as much as possible, trying to improve my game as much as I can.

"It's good to be tested here and having to adapt my game to the conditions here in India. Queensland won the Shield last season and we had a really good team year.

"It's good we're able to push players into the Australia A side and hopefully further."