🔗 Share this article

The Australian batsman methodically applies butter on both sides of a slice of white bread. “That’s essential,” he tells the camera as he closes the lid of his sandwich grill. “Boom. Then you get it golden on each side.” He checks inside to reveal a golden square of pure toasted goodness, the melted cheese happily bubbling away. “Here’s the secret method,” he announces. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

At this stage, you may feel a glaze of ennui is beginning to appear in your eyes. The warning signs of sportswriting pretension are flashing wildly. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne scored 160 for Queensland Bulls this week and is being feverishly talked up for an return to the Test side before the Ashes.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now understand with frustration – you’re going to have to endure several lines of playful digression about toasties, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of self-referential analysis in the second person. You feel resigned.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a plate and moves toward the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he remarks, “but I personally prefer the grilled sandwich chilled. Boom, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, go for a hit, come back. Boom. It’s ideal.”

Back to Cricket

Alright, let’s try it like this. Shall we get the cricket bit to begin with? Small reward for your patience. And while there may still be six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s century against the Tasmanian side – his third of the summer in all cricket – feels importantly timed.

This is an Aussie opening batsmen badly short of form and structure, exposed by the Proteas in the Test championship decider, shown up once more in the Caribbean afterwards. Labuschagne was left out during that series, but on some level you felt Australia were desperate to rehabilitate him at the first opportunity. Now he looks to have given them the right opportunity.

And this is a plan that Australia need to work. Khawaja has just one 100 in his last 44 knocks. The young batsman looks not quite a first-innings batsman and closer to the good-looking star who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood movie. No other options has presented a strong argument. Nathan McSweeney looks cooked. Harris is still oddly present, like dust or mold. Meanwhile their leader, Cummins, is injured and suddenly this seems like a weirdly lightweight side, short of command or stability, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often helped Australia dominate before a ball is bowled.

The Batsman’s Revival

Here comes Labuschagne: a leading Test player as in the recent past, recently omitted from the one-day team, the right person to return structure to a brittle empire. And we are advised this is a composed and reflective Labuschagne these days: a simplified, no-frills Labuschagne, no longer as intensely fixated with technical minutiae. “It seems I’ve really simplified things,” he said after his hundred. “Less focused on technique, just what I must bat effectively.”

Naturally, nobody truly believes this. Probably this is a rebrand that exists just in Labuschagne’s personal view: still furiously stripping down that approach from dawn to dusk, going deeper into fundamentals than anyone has ever dared. You want less technical? Marnus will take time in the practice sessions with coaches and video clips, exhaustively remoulding himself into the least technical batter that has ever existed. This is just the trait of the obsessed, and the characteristic that has long made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging cricketers in the game.

Bigger Scene

Maybe before this highly uncertain England-Australia contest, there is even a kind of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s endless focus. On England’s side we have a side for whom any kind of analysis, not to mention self-review, is a forbidden topic. Go with instinct. Be where the ball is. Live in the instant.

In the other corner you have a individual like Labuschagne, a individual terminally obsessed with the game and wonderfully unconcerned by public perception, who finds cricket even in the moments outside play, who handles this unusual pursuit with just the right measure of absurd reverence it demands.

And it worked. During his intense period – from the instant he appeared to come in for a hurt Steve Smith at the famous ground in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne somehow managed to see the game more deeply. To access it – through absolute focus – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his days playing Kent league cricket, colleagues noticed him on the morning of a game resting on a bench in a focused mindset, mentally rehearsing every single ball of his time at the crease. As per cricket statisticians, during the first few years of his career a unusually large proportion of catches were missed when he batted. In some way Labuschagne had predicted events before others could react to influence it.

Recent Challenges

Perhaps this was why his performance dipped the point he became number one. There were no worlds left to visualise, just a empty space before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he began doubting his signature shot, got stuck in his crease and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his mentor, his coach, thinks a focus on white-ball cricket started to erode confidence in his technique. Encouragingly: he’s recently omitted from the 50-over squad.

Certainly it’s relevant, too, that Labuschagne is a devoutly religious individual, an committed Christian who thinks that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his job as one of achieving this peak performance, despite being puzzling it may appear to the rest of us.

This approach, to my mind, has consistently been the primary contrast between him and the other batsman, a instinctive player