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Labuschagne methodically applies butter on the top and bottom of a slice of plain bread. “That’s the secret,” he tells the camera as he closes the lid of his sandwich grill. “Perfect. Then you get it toasted on each side.” He checks inside to reveal a golden square of delicious perfection, the gooey cheese happily sizzling within. “And that’s the secret method,” he explains. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

By now, it’s clear a glaze of ennui is beginning to appear in your eyes. The red lights of elaborate writing are going off. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne scored 160 for Queensland this week and is being widely discussed for an return to the Test side 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 get through several lines of light-hearted musing about toasties, plus an additional unnecessary part of overly analytical commentary in the “you” perspective. You feel resigned.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a serving plate and walks across the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he states, “but I actually like the cold toastie. Boom, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, go for a hit, come back. Alright. Toastie’s ready to go.”

The Cricket Context

Okay, let’s try it like this. Shall we get the cricket bit initially? Little treat for making it this far. And while there may still be six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s hundred against Tasmania – his third of the summer in various games – feels quietly decisive.

This is an Australia top three seriously lacking form and structure, revealed against the Proteas in the Test championship decider, exposed again in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was dropped during that tour, but on some level you sensed Australia were keen to restore him at the soonest moment. Now he appears to have given them the right opportunity.

Here is a plan that Australia need to work. The opener has just one 100 in his past 44 innings. Sam Konstas looks less like a Test match opener and rather like the attractive performer who might portray a cricketer in a Bollywood epic. Other candidates has presented a strong argument. Nathan McSweeney looks out of form. Harris is still oddly present, like dust or mold. Meanwhile their leader, the pace bowler, is hurt and suddenly this seems like a surprisingly weak team, missing strength or equilibrium, the kind of natural confidence that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a game starts.

Marnus’s Comeback

Enter Marnus: a world No 1 Test batter as recently as 2023, just left out from the 50-over squad, the ideal candidate to restore order to a brittle empire. And we are advised this is a composed and reflective Labuschagne these days: a pared-down, fundamental-focused Labuschagne, no longer as maniacally obsessed with technical minutiae. “I feel like I’ve really simplified things,” he said after his century. “Less focused on technique, just what I should bat effectively.”

Of course, few accept this. Probably this is a new approach that exists just in Labuschagne’s own head: still endlessly adjusting that technique from dawn to dusk, going deeper into fundamentals than anyone else would try. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will take time in the nets with coaches and video clips, exhaustively remoulding himself into the simplest player that has ever been seen. This is simply the quality of the focused, and the characteristic that has long made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating sportsmen in the game.

Wider Context

Maybe before this highly uncertain historic rivalry, there is even a sort of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s endless focus. On England’s side we have a side for whom detailed examination, let alone self-analysis, is a forbidden topic. Feel the flavours. Stay in the moment. Live in the instant.

For Australia you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a man terminally obsessed with the game and wonderfully unconcerned by others’ opinions, who sees cricket even in the moments outside play, who treats this absurd sport with exactly the level of absurd reverence it deserves.

His method paid off. During his focused era – from the time he walked out to replace a concussed Steve Smith at the famous ground in 2019 to around the end of 2022 – Labuschagne found a way to see the game on another level. To reach it – through absolute focus – on a elevated, strange, passionate tier. During his stint in English county cricket, colleagues noticed him on the morning of a game positioned on a seat in a meditative condition, literally visualising every single ball of his innings. According to the analytics firm, during the early stages of his career a statistically unfathomable catches were dropped off his bat. In some way Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before anyone had a chance to affect it.

Current Struggles

It’s possible this was why his performance dipped the point he became number one. There were no further goals to picture, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Additionally – he lost faith in his favorite stroke, got stuck in his crease and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his trainer, Neil D’Costa, believes a attention to shorter formats started to undermine belief in his technique. Positive development: he’s recently omitted from the 50-over squad.

Surely it matters, 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 reaching this optimal zone, no matter how mysterious it may look to the mortal of us.

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