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Marnus carefully spreads butter on both sides of a slice of plain bread. “That’s essential,” he explains as he closes the lid of his toastie maker. “Boom. Then you get it toasted on both sides.” He checks inside to reveal a perfectly browned of pure toasted goodness, the bubbling cheese happily sizzling within. “And that’s the trick of the trade,” he explains. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

Already, I sense a sense of disinterest is beginning to appear in your eyes. The alarm bells of sportswriting pretension are going off. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne hit 160 for Queensland Bulls this week and is being feverishly talked up for an Australian Test recall before the Ashes series.

You likely wish to read more about that. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to endure several lines of light-hearted musing about toasted sandwiches, plus an additional unnecessary part of overly analytical commentary in the second person. You sigh again.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a dish and heads over the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he announces, “but I personally prefer the toastie cold. Done, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, go for a hit, come back. Perfect. It’s ideal.”

Back to Cricket

Alright, to cut to the chase. Let’s address the sports aspect to begin with? Little treat for making it this far. And while there may be just six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against the Tasmanian side – his third in recent months in all cricket – feels importantly timed.

Here’s an Australian top order badly short of performance and method, exposed by South Africa in the World Test Championship final, shown up once more in the Caribbean afterwards. Labuschagne was dropped during that tour, but on some level you sensed Australia were keen to restore him at the first opportunity. Now he seems to have given them the perfect excuse.

Here is a plan that Australia need to work. Usman Khawaja has just one 100 in his past 44 innings. Sam Konstas looks not quite a first-innings batsman and rather like the handsome actor who might play a Test opener in a Indian film. None of the alternatives has made a cogent case. One contender looks finished. Another option is still surprisingly included, like dust or mold. Meanwhile their captain, Pat Cummins, is hurt and suddenly this appears as a unusually thin squad, missing strength or equilibrium, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often helped Australia dominate before a game starts.

Marnus’s Comeback

Here comes Labuschagne: a world No 1 Test batter as recently as 2023, just left out from the one-day team, the right person to bring stability to a shaky team. And we are told this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne now: a pared-down, no-frills Labuschagne, less maniacally obsessed with small details. “It seems I’ve really simplified things,” he said after his century. “Less focused on technique, just what I should score runs.”

Naturally, few accept this. In all likelihood this is a fresh image that exists only in Labuschagne’s personal view: still furiously stripping down that approach from all day, going further toward simplicity than anyone has ever dared. You want less technical? Marnus will spend months in the nets with advisors and replays, completely transforming into the least technical batter that has ever been seen. This is simply the quality of the focused, and the characteristic that has long made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing cricketers in the sport.

The Broader Picture

It could be before this inscrutably unpredictable England-Australia contest, there is even a type of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s endless focus. On England’s side we have a squad for whom technical study, let alone self-analysis, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Trust your gut. Focus on the present. Live in the instant.

For Australia you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a man utterly absorbed with the game and magnificently unbothered by who knows about it, who finds cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who approaches this quirky game with just the right measure of absurd reverence it requires.

His method paid off. During his shamanic phase – from the time he walked out to substitute for an injured the senior batsman at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 2019 to around the end of 2022 – Labuschagne somehow managed to see the game on another level. To tap into it – through absolute focus – on a higher, weirder, more frenzied level. During his days playing English county cricket, colleagues noticed him on the morning of a game sitting on a park bench in a focused mindset, literally visualising all balls of his time at the crease. As per the analytics firm, during the early stages of his career a statistically unfathomable number of chances were dropped off his bat. Remarkably Labuschagne had anticipated outcomes before others could react to change it.

Recent Challenges

Perhaps this was why his form started to decline the moment he reached the summit. There were no further goals to picture, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Additionally – he began doubting his signature shot, got stuck in his crease and seemed to misjudge his positioning. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his mentor, his coach, believes a attention to shorter formats started to weaken assurance in his positioning. Good news: he’s recently omitted from the one-day team.

Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a strongly faithful person, an committed Christian who believes that this is all preordained, who thus sees his role as one of reaching this optimal zone, 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 the other batsman, a inherently talented player