🔗 Share this article

Labuschagne methodically applies butter on each surface of a slice of white bread. “That’s the secret,” he states as he closes the lid of his toastie maker. “Perfect. Then you get it toasted on the outside.” He checks inside to reveal a golden square of ideal crispiness, the melted cheese happily melting inside. “Here’s the trick of the trade,” he declares. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

By now, you may feel a layer of boredom is beginning to form across your eyes. The alarm bells of sportswriting pretension are going off. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne made 160 runs for Queensland Bulls this week and is being eagerly promoted for an national team comeback before the Ashes series.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to endure a section of wobbling whimsy about grilled cheese, plus an further tangential section of tiresome meta‑deconstruction in the second person. You feel resigned.

He turns the sandwich on to a serving plate and walks across the fridge. “Few try this,” he announces, “but I actually like the toastie cold. Done, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, go bat, come back. Alright. It’s ideal.”

Back to Cricket

Look, let’s try it like this. Shall we get the match details to begin with? Small reward for reading until now. And while there may be just six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against the Tigers – his third of the summer in all cricket – feels significantly impactful.

Here’s an Australian top order clearly missing performance and method, revealed against the Proteas in the Test championship decider, highlighted further in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was left out during that series, but on a certain level you sensed Australia were eager to bring him back at the soonest moment. Now he seems to have given them the perfect excuse.

And this is a approach the team should follow. Khawaja has just one 100 in his past 44 innings. Sam Konstas looks not quite a Test opener and closer to the handsome actor who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood epic. Other candidates has made a cogent case. One contender looks finished. Another option is still surprisingly included, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their leader, the pace bowler, is unfit and suddenly this feels like a weirdly lightweight side, lacking strength or equilibrium, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often given Australia a lead before a ball is bowled.

Labuschagne’s Return

Step forward Marnus: a world No 1 Test batter as in the recent past, just left out from the 50-over squad, the right person to restore order to a shaky team. And we are informed this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne now: a simplified, back-to-basics Labuschagne, less intensely fixated with minor adjustments. “I feel like I’ve really cut out extras,” he said after his hundred. “Not really too technical, just what I need to make runs.”

Clearly, nobody truly believes this. Probably this is a rebrand that exists just in Labuschagne’s personal view: still endlessly adjusting that technique from all day, going deeper into fundamentals than anyone has ever dared. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will spend months in the practice sessions with advisors and replays, thoroughly reshaping his game into the simplest player that has ever played. This is just the nature of the addict, and the quality that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging cricketers in the sport.

Wider Context

It could be before this very open England-Australia contest, there is even a kind of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. For England we have a squad for whom any kind of analysis, not to mention self-review, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Feel the flavours. Be where the ball is. Embrace the current.

On the opposite side you have a player such as Labuschagne, a player completely dedicated with cricket and totally indifferent by who knows about it, who observes cricket even in the moments outside play, who handles this unusual pursuit with precisely the amount of odd devotion it requires.

And it worked. During his focused era – from the time he walked out to come in for a hurt Smith at Lord’s in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game with greater insight. To access it – through pure determination – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his stint in English county cricket, fellow players saw him on the game day sitting on a park bench in a meditative condition, actually imagining every single ball of his innings. Per the analytics firm, during the first few years of his career a statistically unfathomable number of chances were missed when he batted. Remarkably Labuschagne had anticipated outcomes before others could react to influence it.

Current Struggles

It’s possible this was why his career began to disintegrate the time he achieved top ranking. There were no further goals to picture, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Additionally – he stopped trusting his cover drive, got stuck in his crease and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his trainer, his coach, reckons a emphasis on limited-overs started to erode confidence in his positioning. Positive development: he’s recently omitted from the ODI side.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a devoutly religious individual, an religious believer who believes that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his job as one of accessing this state of flow, no matter how mysterious it may appear to the rest of us.

This mindset, to my mind, has long been the main point of difference between him and the other batsman, a instinctive player