🔗 Share this article

Marnus evenly coats butter on both sides of a slice of soft bread. “That’s the key,” he tells the camera as he closes the lid of his grilled cheese press. “Perfect. Then you get it golden on the outside.” He opens the grill to reveal a toasted delight of pure toasted goodness, the bubbling cheese happily sizzling within. “And that’s the secret method,” he announces. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

Already, it’s clear a sense of disinterest is beginning to appear in your eyes. The alarm bells of sportswriting pretension are flashing wildly. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne made 160 runs for Queensland this week and is being eagerly promoted for an national team comeback before the England-Australia contest.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about that. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to sit through a section of playful digression about toasties, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of self-referential analysis in the second person. You sigh again.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a plate and heads over the fridge. “Few try this,” he remarks, “but I actually like the grilled sandwich chilled. Boom, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, go for a hit, come back. Boom. Toastie’s ready to go.”

On-Field Matters

Alright, to cut to the chase. Shall we get the match details initially? Little treat for making it this far. And while there may be just six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against Tasmania – his third this season in all formats – feels importantly timed.

Here’s an Australian top order clearly missing performance and method, exposed by the South African team in the WTC final, highlighted further in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was dropped during that series, but on a certain level you sensed Australia were desperate to rehabilitate him at the earliest chance. Now he appears to have given them the perfect excuse.

Here is a plan that Australia need to work. Usman Khawaja has a single hundred in his recent 44 batting efforts. Konstas looks hardly a Test match opener and closer to the attractive performer who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood movie. No other options has shown convincing form. McSweeney looks cooked. Harris is still surprisingly included, like dust or mold. Meanwhile their skipper, the pace bowler, is hurt and suddenly this seems like a unusually thin squad, missing command or stability, the kind of natural confidence that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a match begins.

Labuschagne’s Return

Enter Marnus: a world No 1 Test batter as just two years ago, just left out from the one-day team, the right person to return structure to a shaky team. And we are advised this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne now: a simplified, back-to-basics Labuschagne, no longer as intensely fixated with technical minutiae. “It seems I’ve really cut out extras,” he said after his hundred. “Less focused on technique, just what I should score runs.”

Naturally, nobody truly believes this. Probably this is a fresh image that exists only in Labuschagne’s own head: still endlessly adjusting that approach from morning to night, going more back to basics than anyone has ever dared. Like basic approach? Marnus will take time in the training with coaches and video clips, exhaustively remoulding himself into the least technical batter that has ever played. This is just the nature of the addict, and the quality that has always made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating sportsmen in the sport.

Wider Context

Maybe before this highly uncertain England-Australia contest, there is even a sort of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. In England we have a squad for whom any kind of analysis, especially personal critique, is a forbidden topic. Go with instinct. Stay in the moment. Live in the instant.

On the opposite side you have a individual like Labuschagne, a individual completely dedicated with the sport and magnificently unbothered by others’ opinions, who observes cricket even in the gaps in the game, who treats this absurd sport with precisely the amount of absurd reverence it demands.

This approach succeeded. During his intense period – from the instant he appeared to replace a concussed Steve Smith at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game with greater insight. To tap into it – through pure determination – on a elevated, strange, passionate tier. During his time with English county cricket, fellow players saw him on the morning of a game resting on a bench in a focused mindset, mentally rehearsing each delivery of his innings. Per the analytics firm, during the initial period of his career a surprisingly high proportion of catches were dropped off his bat. Remarkably Labuschagne had predicted events before fielders could respond to change it.

Form Issues

Perhaps this was why his career began to disintegrate the moment he reached the summit. There were no new heights to imagine, just a empty space before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he stopped trusting his signature shot, got stuck in his crease and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his trainer, his coach, thinks a focus on white-ball cricket started to erode confidence in his alignment. Positive development: he’s now excluded from the 50-over squad.

Certainly it’s relevant, too, that Labuschagne is a devoutly religious individual, an evangelical Christian who holds that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his task as one of reaching this optimal zone, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may appear to the rest of us.

This mindset, to my mind, has consistently been the primary contrast between him and Steve Smith, a inherently talented player