🔗 Share this article

Marnus methodically applies butter on both sides of a slice of soft bread. “That’s the key,” he states as he closes the lid of his sandwich grill. “There you go. Then you get it golden on the outside.” He lifts the lid to reveal a perfectly browned of ideal crispiness, the melted cheese happily sizzling within. “So this is the secret method,” he announces. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

Already, you may feel a sense of disinterest is beginning to cover your eyes. The alarm bells of overly fancy prose are going off. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne scored 160 for his state team this week and is being widely discussed for an return to the Test side before the Ashes.

You probably want to read more about that. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to endure several lines of wobbling whimsy about toasties, plus an further tangential section of tiresome meta‑deconstruction in the second person. You groan once more.

He turns the sandwich on to a dish and moves toward the fridge. “Few try this,” he announces, “but I personally prefer the cold toastie. Boom, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, head to practice, come back. Alright. Sandwich is perfect.”

The Cricket Context

Alright, let’s try it like this. Shall we get the sports aspect initially? Little treat for your patience. And while there may only be six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against the Tasmanian side – his third in recent months in various games – feels importantly timed.

Here’s an Aussie opening batsmen clearly missing consistency and technique, revealed against South Africa in the Test championship decider, exposed again in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was omitted during that series, but on a certain level you gathered Australia were eager to bring him back at the soonest moment. Now he appears to have given them the right opportunity.

This represents a approach the team should follow. The opener has a single hundred in his past 44 innings. The young batsman looks not quite a Test opener and closer to the attractive performer who might play a Test opener in a Indian film. No other options has made a cogent case. One contender looks cooked. Harris is still inexplicably hanging around, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their leader, the pace bowler, is unfit and suddenly this feels like a surprisingly weak team, missing authority or balance, the kind of built-in belief that has often given Australia a lead before a ball is bowled.

Labuschagne’s Return

Step forward Marnus: a top-ranked Test batsman as just two years ago, freshly dropped from the one-day team, the right person to bring stability to a fragile lineup. And we are informed this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne now: a streamlined, no-frills Labuschagne, less intensely fixated with small details. “I feel like I’ve really cut out extras,” he said after his ton. “Not overthinking, just what I must make runs.”

Of course, this is doubted. In all likelihood this is a rebrand that exists just in Labuschagne’s own head: still furiously stripping down that technique from all day, going further toward simplicity than anyone else would try. You want less technical? Marnus will devote weeks in the practice sessions with trainers and footage, exhaustively remoulding himself into the most basic batsman that has ever existed. That’s the nature of the addict, and the trait that has long made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging cricketers in the game.

Bigger Scene

Maybe before this very open England-Australia contest, there is even a type of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s constant dedication. For England we have a team for whom detailed examination, let alone self-analysis, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Go with instinct. Be where the ball is. Smell the now.

In the other corner you have a individual like Labuschagne, a individual terminally obsessed with cricket and wonderfully unconcerned by public perception, who sees cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who treats this absurd sport with precisely the amount of quirky respect it deserves.

His method paid off. During his intense period – from the time he walked out to come in for a hurt Steve Smith at Lord’s in 2019 to until late 2022 – Labuschagne found a way to see the game more deeply. To access it – through absolute focus – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his stint in Kent league cricket, teammates would find him on the day of a match sitting on a park bench in a meditative condition, mentally rehearsing all balls of his time at the crease. According to the analytics firm, during the initial period of his career a unusually large proportion of catches were spilled from his batting. Somehow Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before fielders could respond to change it.

Form Issues

It’s possible this was why his performance dipped the time he achieved top ranking. There were no new heights to imagine, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Furthermore – he stopped trusting his signature shot, got stuck in his crease and seemed to misjudge his positioning. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his trainer, D’Costa, believes a emphasis on limited-overs started to undermine belief in his alignment. Positive development: he’s recently omitted from the one-day team.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an committed Christian who holds that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his job as one of accessing this state of flow, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may look to the rest of us.

This, to my mind, has long been the primary contrast between him and Steve Smith, a instinctive player