🔗 Share this article

Marnus carefully spreads butter on each surface of a slice of soft bread. “That’s the key,” he states as he closes the lid of his toastie maker. “Perfect. 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 trick of the trade,” he explains. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

By now, I sense 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 this week and is being widely discussed for an national team comeback before the Ashes.

You probably want to read more about his performance. But first – you now understand with frustration – you’re going to have to get through a section of playful digression about grilled cheese, plus an further tangential section of overly analytical commentary in the direct address. You groan once more.

He turns the sandwich on to a plate and heads over the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he states, “but I genuinely enjoy the grilled sandwich chilled. Done, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, head to practice, come back. Alright. Toastie’s ready to go.”

Back to Cricket

Look, let’s try it like this. How about we cover the cricket bit out of the way first? Quick update for making it this far. And while there may still be six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s hundred against Tasmania – his third in recent months in various games – feels quietly decisive.

This is an Aussie opening batsmen clearly missing form and structure, revealed against the South African team in the World Test Championship final, highlighted further in the Caribbean afterwards. Labuschagne was dropped during that trip, but on one hand you gathered Australia were keen to restore him at the soonest moment. Now he seems to have given them the perfect excuse.

And this is a strategy Australia must implement. The opener has one century in his last 44 knocks. The young batsman looks less like a first-innings batsman and rather like the handsome actor who might act as a batsman in a Indian film. No other options has presented a strong argument. McSweeney looks finished. Marcus Harris is still surprisingly included, like dust or mold. Meanwhile their skipper, Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this feels like a surprisingly weak team, missing command or stability, the kind of built-in belief that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a match begins.

Marnus’s Comeback

Step forward Marnus: a top-ranked Test batsman as just two years ago, recently omitted from the ODI side, the ideal candidate to return structure to a fragile lineup. And we are advised this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne now: a pared-down, fundamental-focused Labuschagne, not as extremely focused with technical minutiae. “I believe I have really stripped it back,” he said after his hundred. “Not overthinking, just what I must bat effectively.”

Of course, few accept this. Probably this is a rebrand that exists just in Labuschagne’s own head: still furiously stripping down that method from morning to night, going further toward simplicity than anyone else would try. Like basic approach? Marnus will take time in the training with coaches and video clips, thoroughly reshaping his game into the most basic batsman that has ever played. That’s the trait of the obsessed, and the trait that has long made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating sportsmen in the sport.

Wider Context

Perhaps before this very open England-Australia contest, there is even a sort of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s constant dedication. On England’s side we have a team for whom any kind of analysis, let alone self-analysis, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Go with instinct. Be where the ball is. Embrace the current.

On the opposite side you have a individual like Labuschagne, a individual terminally obsessed with cricket and magnificently unbothered by public perception, who observes cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who approaches this quirky game with just the right measure of absurd reverence it requires.

And it worked. During his shamanic phase – from the moment he strode out to substitute for an injured Smith at the famous ground in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game more deeply. To reach it – through absolute focus – on a elevated, strange, passionate tier. During his days playing club cricket, fellow players saw him on the morning of a game resting on a bench in a meditative condition, mentally rehearsing every single ball of his innings. As per the analytics firm, during the initial period of his career a surprisingly high proportion of catches were dropped off his bat. Somehow Labuschagne had anticipated outcomes before others could react to affect it.

Form Issues

Maybe this was why his form started to decline the time he achieved top ranking. There were no worlds left to visualise, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Additionally – he lost faith in his signature shot, got unable to move forward and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his mentor, his coach, believes a focus on white-ball cricket started to erode confidence in his alignment. Encouragingly: he’s recently omitted from the one-day team.

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

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