🔗 Share this article

Labuschagne carefully spreads butter on both sides of a slice of white bread. “That’s the key,” he states as he closes the lid of his grilled cheese press. “Perfect. Then you get it toasted on each side.” He opens the grill to reveal a perfectly browned of pure toasted goodness, the melted cheese happily melting inside. “And that’s the trick of the trade,” he announces. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

Already, you may feel a layer of boredom is beginning to cover your eyes. The warning signs of sportswriting pretension are blinking intensely. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne made 160 runs for Queensland Bulls this week and is being widely discussed for an national team comeback before the England-Australia contest.

You probably want to read more about that. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to get through three paragraphs of wobbling whimsy about toasted sandwiches, plus an additional unnecessary part of self-referential analysis in the second person. You feel resigned.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a dish and walks across the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he remarks, “but I personally prefer the cold toastie. Boom, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, go bat, come back. Alright. Toastie’s ready to go.”

The Cricket Context

Okay, here’s the main point. How about we cover the sports aspect to begin with? Quick update for making it this far. And while there may still be six weeks until the series opener, Labuschagne’s hundred against the Tigers – his third of the summer in various games – feels significantly impactful.

We have an Aussie opening batsmen clearly missing performance and method, revealed against the Proteas in the World Test Championship final, highlighted further in the Caribbean afterwards. Labuschagne was dropped during that tour, but on some level you felt Australia were desperate to rehabilitate him at the first opportunity. Now he appears to have given them the right opportunity.

This represents a approach the team should follow. The opener has just one 100 in his last 44 knocks. Konstas looks hardly a Test match opener and closer to the attractive performer who might portray a cricketer in a Indian film. Other candidates has shown convincing form. McSweeney looks cooked. Another option is still surprisingly included, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their skipper, Pat Cummins, is injured and suddenly this appears as a unusually thin squad, short of command or stability, the kind of natural confidence that has often given Australia a lead before a game starts.

The Batsman’s Revival

Here comes Labuschagne: a leading Test player as in the recent past, just left out from the 50-over squad, the ideal candidate to bring stability to a brittle empire. And we are informed this is a composed and reflective Labuschagne currently: a simplified, fundamental-focused Labuschagne, no longer as maniacally obsessed with minor adjustments. “I believe I have really simplified things,” he said after his ton. “Not really too technical, just what I should score runs.”

Of course, nobody truly believes this. Probably this is a fresh image that exists only in Labuschagne’s mind: still furiously stripping down that method from dawn to dusk, going more back to basics than anyone else would try. Like basic approach? Marnus will spend months in the practice sessions with trainers and footage, exhaustively remoulding himself into the least technical batter that has ever existed. That’s the trait of the obsessed, and the quality that has always made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating players in the cricket.

Wider Context

Maybe before this inscrutably unpredictable England-Australia contest, there is even a kind of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s constant dedication. On England’s side we have a squad for whom detailed examination, not to mention self-review, is a forbidden topic. Go with instinct. Stay in the moment. Smell the now.

On the opposite side you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a player utterly absorbed with the game and totally indifferent by public perception, who finds cricket even in the gaps in the game, who treats this absurd sport with precisely the amount of quirky respect it requires.

His method paid off. During his intense period – from the instant he appeared to come in for a hurt the senior batsman at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne found a way to see the game with greater insight. To reach it – through sheer intensity of will – on a elevated, strange, passionate tier. During his stint in club cricket, colleagues noticed him on the game day positioned on a seat in a trance-like state, literally visualising every single ball of his time at the crease. According to Cricviz, during the first few years of his career a surprisingly high number of chances were missed when he batted. Remarkably Labuschagne had anticipated outcomes before others could react to influence it.

Form Issues

Perhaps this was why his performance dipped the point he became number one. There were no new heights to imagine, just a empty space before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he began doubting his signature shot, got trapped on the crease and seemed to misjudge his positioning. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his trainer, D’Costa, believes a emphasis on limited-overs started to undermine belief in his positioning. Encouragingly: he’s recently omitted from the ODI side.

Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an evangelical Christian who holds that this is all preordained, who thus sees his role as one of achieving this peak performance, no matter how mysterious it may look to the ordinary people.

This mindset, to my mind, has long been the primary contrast between him and the other batsman, a more naturally gifted player