🔗 Share this article

Marnus carefully spreads butter on the top and bottom of a slice of white bread. “That’s essential,” he explains as he brings down the lid of his sandwich grill. “Perfect. Then you get it crisp on both sides.” He checks inside to reveal a golden square of delicious perfection, the gooey cheese happily melting inside. “And that’s the trick of the trade,” he announces. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

By now, it’s clear a sense of disinterest is beginning to appear in your eyes. The red lights of elaborate writing are blinking intensely. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne made 160 runs for Queensland this week and is being widely discussed for an return to the Test side 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 sit through a section of wobbling whimsy about toasted sandwiches, plus an further tangential section of self-referential analysis in the second person. You groan once more.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a dish and heads over the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he announces, “but I genuinely enjoy the toastie cold. Boom, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, head to practice, come back. Boom. Sandwich is perfect.”

Back to Cricket

Alright, here’s the main point. How about we cover the sports aspect to begin with? Quick update for your patience. 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 quietly decisive.

This is an Aussie opening batsmen clearly missing consistency and technique, shown up by the Proteas in the World Test Championship final, exposed again in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was dropped during that tour, but on some level you felt Australia were desperate to rehabilitate him at the earliest chance. Now he looks to have given them the ideal reason.

And this is a approach the team should follow. Usman Khawaja has a single hundred in his recent 44 batting efforts. Sam Konstas looks less like a Test opener and rather like the good-looking star who might portray a cricketer in a Indian film. No other options has presented a strong argument. Nathan McSweeney looks out of form. Another option is still surprisingly included, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their skipper, Pat Cummins, is injured and suddenly this appears as a unusually thin squad, short of command or stability, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a ball is bowled.

Marnus’s Comeback

Step forward Marnus: a world No 1 Test batter as just two years ago, just left out from the 50-over squad, the right person to return structure to a brittle empire. And we are advised this is a composed and reflective Labuschagne these days: a simplified, no-frills Labuschagne, not as intensely fixated with minor adjustments. “I believe I have really simplified things,” he said after his ton. “Not overthinking, just what I must make runs.”

Naturally, this is doubted. Most likely this is a fresh image that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s personal view: still furiously stripping down that method from dawn to dusk, going further toward simplicity than any player has attempted. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will take time in the practice sessions with trainers and footage, exhaustively remoulding himself into the least technical batter that has ever existed. That’s the trait of the obsessed, and the trait that has long made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging players in the sport.

Wider Context

Maybe before this very open historic rivalry, there is even a sort of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s constant dedication. On England’s side we have a side for whom technical study, especially personal critique, is a forbidden topic. Go with instinct. Be where the ball is. Live in the instant.

For Australia you have a individual like Labuschagne, a man utterly absorbed with the sport and wonderfully unconcerned by who knows about it, who observes cricket even in the gaps in the game, who treats this absurd sport with exactly the level of quirky respect it requires.

His method paid off. During his focused era – from the instant he appeared to come in for a hurt the senior batsman at Lord’s in 2019 to until late 2022 – Labuschagne found a way to see the game with greater insight. To tap into it – through pure determination – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his days playing club cricket, fellow players saw him on the game day resting on a bench in a meditative condition, mentally rehearsing all balls of his time at the crease. As per Cricviz, during the initial period of his career a statistically unfathomable number of chances were dropped off his bat. Remarkably Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before anyone had a chance to change it.

Form Issues

Maybe this was why his performance dipped the point he became number one. There were no worlds left to visualise, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Furthermore – he began doubting his cover drive, got unable to move forward and seemed to misjudge his positioning. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his coach, D’Costa, reckons a attention to shorter formats started to erode confidence in his alignment. Encouragingly: 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 believes that this is all predetermined, who thus sees his role as one of achieving this peak performance, no matter how mysterious it may seem to the mortal of us.

This, to my mind, has long been the key distinction between him and Steve Smith, a more naturally gifted player