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Labuschagne evenly coats butter on both sides of a slice of white bread. “That’s the secret,” he tells the camera as he closes the lid of his grilled cheese press. “Perfect. Then you get it golden on the outside.” He checks inside to reveal a toasted delight of ideal crispiness, the bubbling cheese happily sizzling within. “And that’s the trick of the trade,” he announces. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

By now, you may feel a sense of disinterest is beginning to appear in your eyes. The warning signs of sportswriting pretension are going off. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne made 160 runs for Queensland this week and is being eagerly promoted for an national team comeback before the Ashes series.

You likely wish to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to sit through three paragraphs of wobbling whimsy about toasties, plus an further tangential section of tiresome meta‑deconstruction in the second person. You groan once more.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a plate and walks across the fridge. “Few try this,” he states, “but I actually like the toastie cold. There, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, go for a hit, come back. Perfect. Sandwich is perfect.”

The Cricket Context

Okay, let’s try it like this. How about we cover the match details to begin with? Little treat for reading until now. And while there may still be six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against Tasmania – his third of the summer in all cricket – feels significantly impactful.

This is an Australian top order badly short of consistency and technique, revealed against the South African team in the Test championship decider, shown up once more in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was dropped during that series, but on a certain level you sensed Australia were keen to restore him at the soonest moment. Now he looks to have given them the perfect excuse.

And this is a approach the team should follow. The opener has one century in his recent 44 batting efforts. Konstas looks not quite a first-innings batsman and closer to the good-looking star who might play a Test opener in a Indian film. No other options has shown convincing form. Nathan McSweeney looks cooked. Harris is still oddly present, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their skipper, Cummins, is hurt and suddenly this seems like a surprisingly weak team, missing authority or balance, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often given Australia a lead before a match begins.

The Batsman’s Revival

Step forward Marnus: a world No 1 Test batter as in the recent past, freshly dropped from the ODI side, the right person to return structure to a shaky team. And we are informed this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne currently: a simplified, no-frills Labuschagne, no longer as intensely fixated with technical minutiae. “I believe I have really cut out extras,” he said after his hundred. “Not overthinking, just what I should score runs.”

Naturally, few accept this. Most likely this is a fresh image that exists just in Labuschagne’s personal view: still endlessly adjusting that method from morning to night, going more back to basics than any player has attempted. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will devote weeks in the nets with advisors and replays, thoroughly reshaping his game into the least technical batter that has ever been seen. That’s the nature of the addict, and the quality that has always made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing sportsmen in the game.

The Broader Picture

It could be before this inscrutably unpredictable England-Australia contest, there is even a type of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. In England we have a team for whom detailed examination, let alone self-analysis, is a risky subject. Trust your gut. Focus on the present. Live in the instant.

For Australia you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a man utterly absorbed with cricket and magnificently unbothered by others’ opinions, who sees cricket even in the gaps in the game, who treats this absurd sport with just the right measure of absurd reverence it deserves.

His method paid off. During his intense period – from the time he walked out to substitute for an injured Steve Smith 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 elevated, strange, passionate tier. During his stint in Kent league cricket, colleagues noticed him on the game day positioned on a seat in a focused mindset, actually imagining all balls of his time at the crease. As per the analytics firm, during the initial period of his career a unusually large catches were spilled from his batting. Somehow Labuschagne had anticipated outcomes before anyone had a chance to influence it.

Recent Challenges

Maybe this was why his performance dipped the point he became number one. There were no new heights to imagine, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he lost faith in his favorite stroke, got trapped on the crease and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his mentor, D’Costa, thinks a focus on white-ball cricket started to erode confidence in his positioning. Encouragingly: he’s just been dropped from the one-day team.

Certainly it’s relevant, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an religious believer who thinks that this is all preordained, who thus sees his role as one of reaching this optimal zone, despite being puzzling it may look to the rest of us.

This, to my mind, has long been the main point of difference between him and Smith, a inherently talented player