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Labuschagne evenly coats butter on both sides of a slice of plain bread. “That’s the key,” he explains as he closes the lid of his grilled cheese press. “Perfect. Then you get it toasted on the outside.” He opens the grill to reveal a golden square of pure toasted goodness, the melted cheese happily melting inside. “And that’s the key technique,” he announces. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

At this stage, I sense a glaze of ennui is beginning to cover your eyes. The alarm bells of overly fancy prose are going off. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne made 160 runs for his state team this week and is being eagerly promoted for an Australian Test recall before the Ashes.

You likely wish to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to endure a section of wobbling whimsy about toasted sandwiches, plus an further tangential section of overly analytical commentary in the “you” perspective. You groan once more.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a serving plate and moves toward the fridge. “Not many people do this,” he states, “but I genuinely enjoy the grilled sandwich chilled. There, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, go for a hit, come back. Perfect. It’s ideal.”

On-Field Matters

Look, to cut to the chase. Shall we get the match details initially? Little treat for reading until now. And while there may be just six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s hundred against Tasmania – his third of the summer in all cricket – feels importantly timed.

We have an Aussie opening batsmen badly short of performance and method, exposed by South Africa in the Test championship decider, shown up once more in the Caribbean afterwards. Labuschagne was left out during that series, but on a certain level you gathered Australia were eager to bring him back at the first opportunity. Now he seems to have given them the ideal reason.

This represents a strategy Australia must implement. Usman Khawaja has one century in his past 44 innings. Konstas looks not quite a first-innings batsman and rather like the attractive performer who might portray a cricketer in a Indian film. None of the alternatives has made a cogent case. Nathan McSweeney looks cooked. Marcus Harris is still surprisingly included, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their skipper, Cummins, is hurt and suddenly this seems like a surprisingly weak team, lacking authority or balance, the kind of built-in belief that has often given Australia a lead before a ball is bowled.

Marnus’s Comeback

Enter Marnus: a world No 1 Test batter as in the recent past, recently omitted from the ODI side, the right person to return structure to a fragile lineup. And we are told this is a composed and reflective Labuschagne these days: a simplified, fundamental-focused Labuschagne, less maniacally obsessed with technical minutiae. “I believe I have really stripped it back,” he said after his hundred. “Not overthinking, just what I need to bat effectively.”

Naturally, few accept this. Probably this is a rebrand that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s own head: still endlessly adjusting that approach from morning to night, going deeper into fundamentals than anyone else would try. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will spend months in the nets with coaches and video clips, completely transforming into the least technical batter that has ever existed. That’s the quality of the focused, and the trait that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing players in the game.

Bigger Scene

Perhaps before this highly uncertain England-Australia contest, there is even a sort of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. On England’s side we have a team for whom technical study, not to mention self-review, is a risky subject. Go with instinct. Stay in the moment. Embrace the current.

On the opposite side you have a individual like Labuschagne, a player utterly absorbed with the sport and wonderfully unconcerned by others’ opinions, who finds cricket even in the gaps in the game, who treats this absurd sport with exactly the level of quirky respect it requires.

This approach succeeded. 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 was able to see the game on another level. To reach it – through pure determination – on a higher, weirder, more frenzied level. During his stint in English county cricket, fellow players saw him on the morning of a game sitting on a park bench in a focused mindset, literally visualising each delivery of his time at the crease. As per Cricviz, during the initial period of his career a statistically unfathomable catches were missed when he batted. Somehow Labuschagne had predicted events before anyone had a chance to change it.

Form Issues

Maybe this was why his career began to disintegrate the moment he reached the summit. There were no worlds left to visualise, just a empty space before his eyes. Additionally – he began doubting his favorite stroke, got stuck in his crease and seemed to misjudge his positioning. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his coach, his coach, thinks a attention to shorter formats started to undermine belief in his positioning. Encouragingly: he’s just been dropped from the ODI side.

Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a strongly faithful person, an religious believer who thinks 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 appear to the rest of us.

This, to my mind, has consistently been the primary contrast between him and Steve Smith, a more naturally gifted player