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The Australian batsman evenly coats butter on each surface of a slice of white bread. “That’s essential,” he explains as he brings down the lid of his grilled cheese press. “Boom. Then you get it toasted on both sides.” He opens the grill to reveal a perfectly browned of delicious perfection, the gooey cheese happily bubbling away. “Here’s the key technique,” he declares. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

At this stage, I sense a glaze of ennui is beginning to cover your eyes. The red lights of sportswriting pretension are blinking intensely. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne hit 160 for his state team this week and is being feverishly talked up for an Australian Test recall before the Ashes.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about his performance. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to get through three paragraphs of light-hearted musing about toasties, plus an additional unnecessary part of self-referential analysis in the “you” perspective. You groan once more.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a plate and heads over the fridge. “Not many people do this,” he announces, “but I actually like the grilled sandwich chilled. Boom, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, head to practice, come back. Alright. Sandwich is perfect.”

Back to Cricket

Alright, to cut to the chase. How about we cover the sports aspect out of the way first? Quick update for reading until now. And while there may only be six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against the Tasmanian side – his third this season in all formats – feels quietly decisive.

Here’s an Australia top three seriously lacking form and structure, shown up by the South African team in the WTC final, shown up once more in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was omitted during that series, but on some level you sensed Australia were keen to restore him at the first opportunity. Now he appears to have given them the perfect excuse.

And this is a plan that Australia need to work. Khawaja has just one 100 in his recent 44 batting efforts. The young batsman looks less like a Test match opener and closer to the handsome actor who might portray a cricketer in a Bollywood movie. No other options has made a cogent case. McSweeney looks cooked. Another option is still inexplicably hanging around, like dust or mold. Meanwhile their captain, Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this feels like a surprisingly weak team, short of authority or balance, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often helped Australia dominate before a ball is bowled.

Marnus’s Comeback

Enter Marnus: a top-ranked Test batsman as recently as 2023, just left out from the 50-over squad, the ideal candidate to return structure to a brittle empire. And we are advised this is a composed and reflective Labuschagne these days: a streamlined, back-to-basics Labuschagne, less intensely fixated with small details. “It seems I’ve really cut out extras,” he said after his hundred. “Not really too technical, just what I need to score runs.”

Of course, few accept this. Most likely this is a fresh image that exists only in Labuschagne’s personal view: still endlessly adjusting that approach from all day, going further toward simplicity than any player has attempted. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will devote weeks in the training with coaches and video clips, thoroughly reshaping his game into the most basic batsman that has ever existed. This is just the quality of the focused, and the characteristic that has long made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing players in the game.

Bigger Scene

It could be before this highly uncertain historic rivalry, there is even a type of appealing difference 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 risky subject. Go with instinct. Focus on the present. Embrace the current.

For Australia you have a individual like Labuschagne, a man terminally obsessed with cricket and magnificently unbothered by who knows about it, who sees cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who handles this unusual pursuit with just the right measure of absurd reverence it requires.

This approach succeeded. During his intense period – from the time he walked out to replace a concussed Smith at the famous ground in 2019 to until late 2022 – Labuschagne found a way to see the game with greater insight. To reach it – through absolute focus – on a higher, weirder, more frenzied level. During his time with English county cricket, fellow players saw him on the day of a match sitting on a park bench in a trance-like state, actually imagining each delivery of his time at the crease. According to the analytics firm, during the early stages of his career a statistically unfathomable proportion of catches were dropped off his bat. Remarkably Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before others could react to change it.

Current Struggles

It’s possible this was why his career began to disintegrate the time he achieved top ranking. There were no worlds left to visualise, just a empty space before his eyes. Furthermore – he lost faith in 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 mentor, Neil D’Costa, reckons a emphasis on limited-overs started to weaken assurance in his positioning. Good news: he’s recently omitted from the 50-over squad.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a devoutly religious individual, an committed Christian who thinks that this is all preordained, who thus sees his role as one of reaching this optimal zone, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may seem to the rest of us.

This, to my mind, has always been the primary contrast between him and Steve Smith, a inherently talented player