🔗 Share this article

Labuschagne carefully spreads butter on both sides of a slice of plain bread. “That’s the secret,” he tells the camera as he closes the lid of his sandwich grill. “Boom. Then you get it golden on each side.” He opens the grill to reveal a golden square of ideal crispiness, the gooey cheese happily melting inside. “And that’s the secret method,” he explains. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

Already, it’s clear a sense of disinterest is beginning to cover your eyes. The red lights of overly fancy prose are going off. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne hit 160 for Queensland Bulls 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 understand with frustration – you’re going to have to get through a section of light-hearted musing about grilled cheese, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of overly analytical commentary in the direct address. You sigh again.

He turns the sandwich on to a serving plate and walks across the fridge. “Few try this,” he states, “but I actually like the cold toastie. Boom, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, go for a hit, come back. Alright. Sandwich is perfect.”

Back to Cricket

Alright, let’s try it like this. Shall we get the sports aspect initially? Small reward for making it this far. And while there may still be six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s century against the Tigers – his third in recent months in all cricket – feels quietly decisive.

We have an Australian top order badly short of performance and method, shown up by South Africa in the WTC final, shown up once more in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was left out during that tour, but on some level you felt Australia were keen to restore him at the earliest chance. Now he appears to have given them the ideal reason.

Here is a approach the team should follow. Usman Khawaja has a single hundred in his past 44 innings. Sam Konstas looks not quite a first-innings batsman and closer to the handsome actor who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood epic. Other candidates has shown convincing form. Nathan McSweeney looks finished. Another option is still inexplicably hanging around, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their skipper, Pat Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this appears as a surprisingly weak team, short of strength or equilibrium, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a ball is bowled.

The Batsman’s Revival

Enter Marnus: a world No 1 Test batter as in the recent past, recently omitted from the ODI side, the ideal candidate to return structure to a brittle empire. And we are told this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne these days: a streamlined, no-frills Labuschagne, not as intensely fixated with small details. “I feel like I’ve really simplified things,” he said after his ton. “Not overthinking, just what I need to make runs.”

Naturally, few accept this. Probably this is a fresh image that exists just in Labuschagne’s own head: still constantly refining that approach from all day, going deeper into fundamentals than anyone else would try. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will devote weeks in the nets with advisors and replays, completely transforming into the most basic batsman that has ever played. This is just the nature of the addict, and the trait that has long made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing cricketers in the game.

The Broader Picture

Perhaps before this highly uncertain England-Australia contest, there is even a sort of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s endless focus. On England’s side we have a squad for whom any kind of analysis, let alone self-analysis, is a risky subject. Trust your gut. Focus on the present. Smell the now.

For Australia you have a individual like Labuschagne, a man utterly absorbed with the game and magnificently unbothered by who knows about it, who sees cricket even in the gaps in the game, who treats this absurd sport with exactly the level of absurd reverence it demands.

His method paid off. During his intense period – from the instant he appeared to substitute for an injured Smith at the famous ground in 2019 to around the end of 2022 – Labuschagne somehow managed to see the game with greater insight. To access it – through sheer intensity of will – on a elevated, strange, passionate tier. During his days playing Kent league cricket, colleagues noticed him on the game day resting on a bench in a focused mindset, literally visualising every single ball of his batting stint. As per Cricviz, during the initial period of his career a statistically unfathomable proportion of catches were spilled from his batting. Somehow Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before anyone had a chance to affect it.

Current Struggles

Maybe this was why his career began to disintegrate the time he achieved top ranking. There were no new heights to imagine, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he lost faith in his signature shot, got trapped on the crease and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his mentor, his coach, thinks a focus on white-ball cricket started to weaken assurance in his positioning. Encouragingly: he’s just been dropped from the 50-over squad.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an committed Christian who thinks that this is all predetermined, who thus sees his job as one of accessing this state of flow, despite being puzzling it may appear to the ordinary people.

This, to my mind, has consistently been the key distinction between him and Smith, a instinctive player