🔗 Share this article

Labuschagne carefully spreads butter on the top and bottom of a slice of plain bread. “That’s essential,” he tells the camera as he lowers the lid of his toastie maker. “Boom. Then you get it toasted on each side.” He lifts the lid to reveal a golden square of pure toasted goodness, the melted cheese happily bubbling away. “So this is the key technique,” he announces. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

At this stage, it’s clear a sense of disinterest is beginning to appear in your eyes. The warning signs of elaborate writing are flashing wildly. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne made 160 runs for Queensland this week and is being feverishly talked up for an return to the Test side before the England-Australia contest.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about that. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to endure a section of playful digression about toasties, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of tiresome meta‑deconstruction in the “you” perspective. You feel resigned.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a dish and walks across the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he announces, “but I genuinely enjoy the toastie cold. Boom, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, head to practice, come back. Boom. Sandwich is perfect.”

The Cricket Context

Okay, to cut to the chase. Shall we get the match details initially? Small reward for making it this far. And while there may only be six weeks until the series opener, Labuschagne’s hundred against the Tigers – his third of the summer in various games – feels significantly impactful.

This is an Aussie opening batsmen badly short of performance and method, revealed against the Proteas in the World Test Championship final, exposed again in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was omitted during that trip, but on a certain level you gathered Australia were desperate to rehabilitate him at the soonest moment. Now he seems to have given them the ideal reason.

This represents a plan that Australia need to work. The opener has just one 100 in his recent 44 batting efforts. Konstas looks hardly a first-innings batsman and closer to the attractive performer who might play a Test opener in a Bollywood epic. No other options has shown convincing form. One contender looks out of form. Another option is still inexplicably hanging around, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their skipper, Pat Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this feels like a weirdly lightweight side, missing command or stability, the kind of built-in belief that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a ball is bowled.

The Batsman’s Revival

Step forward Marnus: a top-ranked Test batsman as just two years ago, recently omitted from the 50-over squad, the perfect character to restore order to a fragile lineup. And we are advised this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne currently: a simplified, back-to-basics Labuschagne, less intensely fixated with small details. “I believe I have really simplified things,” he said after his century. “Not really too technical, just what I need to make runs.”

Of course, this is doubted. Most likely this is a new approach that exists just in Labuschagne’s own head: still furiously stripping down that approach from all day, going more back to basics than anyone has ever dared. You want less technical? Marnus will spend months in the nets with coaches and video clips, exhaustively remoulding himself into the simplest player that has ever existed. That’s the quality of the focused, and the trait that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging sportsmen in the game.

Wider Context

Perhaps before this inscrutably unpredictable England-Australia contest, there is even a type of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. On England’s side we have a team for whom detailed examination, especially personal critique, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Trust your gut. Be where the ball is. Smell the now.

On the opposite side you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a player completely dedicated with the sport and magnificently unbothered by others’ opinions, who sees cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who approaches this quirky game with just the right measure of absurd reverence it demands.

His method paid off. During his shamanic phase – 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 on another level. To tap into it – through sheer intensity of will – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his stint in English county cricket, colleagues noticed him on the game day positioned on a seat in a meditative condition, literally visualising each delivery of his innings. As per Cricviz, during the initial period of his career a surprisingly high proportion of catches were dropped off his bat. In some way Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before others could react to influence it.

Recent Challenges

It’s possible this was why his career began to disintegrate the moment he reached the summit. There were no further goals to picture, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Furthermore – he stopped trusting his signature shot, got trapped on the crease and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his trainer, Neil D’Costa, believes a emphasis on limited-overs started to erode confidence in his alignment. Positive development: he’s recently omitted from the 50-over squad.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an religious believer who holds that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his role as one of accessing this state of flow, despite being puzzling it may look to the mortal of us.

This, to my mind, has long been the primary contrast between him and the other batsman, a more naturally gifted player