🔗 Share this article

Labuschagne methodically applies butter on each surface of a slice of white bread. “That’s the key,” he tells the camera as he closes the lid of his grilled cheese press. “There you go. Then you get it toasted on each side.” He opens the grill to reveal a toasted delight of pure toasted goodness, the bubbling cheese happily sizzling within. “Here’s the secret method,” he declares. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

At this stage, it’s clear a layer of boredom is beginning to appear in your eyes. The alarm bells of sportswriting pretension are blinking intensely. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne hit 160 for Queensland this week and is being eagerly promoted for an Australian Test recall before the England-Australia contest.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to sit through several lines of playful digression about toasted sandwiches, plus an further tangential section of tiresome meta‑deconstruction in the direct address. You groan once more.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a serving plate and walks across the fridge. “Not many people do this,” he announces, “but I actually like the cold toastie. Done, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, go for a hit, come back. Boom. Toastie’s ready to go.”

The Cricket Context

Okay, let’s try it like this. How about we cover the sports aspect initially? Quick update for your patience. And while there may still be six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s hundred against the Tasmanian side – his third in recent months in all cricket – feels quietly decisive.

We have an Australian top order badly short of consistency and technique, revealed against South Africa in the World Test Championship final, shown up once more in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was dropped during that tour, but on a certain level you felt Australia were keen to restore him at the earliest chance. Now he appears to have given them the ideal reason.

And this is a strategy Australia must implement. Khawaja has a single hundred in his past 44 innings. Sam Konstas looks not quite a Test opener and more like the good-looking star who might play a Test opener in a Bollywood movie. Other candidates has presented a strong argument. Nathan McSweeney looks cooked. Harris is still surprisingly included, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their captain, Cummins, is injured and suddenly this seems like a weirdly lightweight side, lacking authority or balance, the kind of built-in belief that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a ball is bowled.

Marnus’s Comeback

Enter Marnus: a top-ranked Test batsman as just two years ago, recently omitted from the ODI side, the ideal candidate to restore order to a brittle empire. And we are informed this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne currently: a streamlined, fundamental-focused Labuschagne, not as intensely fixated with technical minutiae. “I believe I have really stripped it back,” he said after his century. “Not overthinking, just what I should score runs.”

Naturally, nobody truly believes this. In all likelihood this is a new approach that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s mind: still constantly refining that technique from morning to night, going deeper into fundamentals than anyone has ever dared. You want less technical? Marnus will take time in the nets with advisors and replays, completely transforming into the most basic batsman that has ever been seen. This is just the nature of the addict, and the quality that has long made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing sportsmen in the cricket.

Bigger Scene

Perhaps before this highly uncertain England-Australia contest, there is even a type of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s endless focus. On England’s side we have a squad for whom technical study, let alone self-analysis, is a forbidden topic. Feel the flavours. Be where the ball is. Live in the instant.

On the opposite side you have a individual like Labuschagne, a man utterly absorbed with the game and magnificently unbothered by public perception, who sees cricket even in the moments outside play, who handles this unusual pursuit with just the right measure of odd devotion it demands.

This approach succeeded. During his intense period – from the time he walked out to substitute for an injured Steve Smith at Lord’s in 2019 to until late 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game on another level. To access it – through absolute focus – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his days playing Kent league cricket, fellow players saw him on the game day sitting on a park bench in a trance-like state, mentally rehearsing each delivery of his time at the crease. Per cricket statisticians, during the early stages of his career a statistically unfathomable proportion of catches were missed when he batted. Somehow Labuschagne had predicted events before fielders could respond to influence 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 unknown territory before his eyes. Additionally – he lost faith in his signature shot, got stuck in his crease and seemed to misjudge his positioning. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his trainer, Neil D’Costa, believes a attention to shorter formats started to undermine belief in his technique. Encouragingly: he’s now excluded from the ODI side.

Certainly it’s relevant, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an religious believer who thinks that this is all predetermined, who thus sees his role as one of accessing this state of flow, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may seem to the ordinary people.

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