🔗 Share this article

Labuschagne methodically applies butter on both sides of a slice of white bread. “That’s the secret,” he tells the camera as he lowers the lid of his sandwich grill. “Perfect. Then you get it toasted on each side.” He checks inside to reveal a golden square of ideal crispiness, the bubbling cheese happily sizzling within. “And that’s the trick of the trade,” he declares. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

By now, it’s clear a layer of boredom is beginning to form across your eyes. The warning signs of sportswriting pretension are going off. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne scored 160 for his state team this week and is being widely discussed for an national team comeback 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 get through a section of wobbling whimsy about toasted sandwiches, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of tiresome meta‑deconstruction in the second person. You sigh again.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a plate and moves toward the fridge. “Few try this,” he states, “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. Sandwich is perfect.”

The Cricket Context

Okay, to cut to the chase. Shall we get the sports aspect to begin with? Small reward for making it this far. And while there may still be six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against the Tasmanian side – his third in recent months in all cricket – feels significantly impactful.

We have an Australia top three clearly missing form and structure, shown up by the South African team in the World Test Championship final, shown up once more in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was left out 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 strategy Australia must implement. The opener has one century in his past 44 innings. The young batsman looks less like a Test opener and closer to the good-looking star who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood epic. No other options has shown convincing form. Nathan McSweeney looks finished. Marcus Harris is still surprisingly included, like dust or mold. Meanwhile their leader, Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this seems like a weirdly lightweight side, lacking authority or balance, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a game starts.

Marnus’s Comeback

Enter Marnus: a world No 1 Test batter as just two years ago, recently omitted from the one-day team, the right person to bring stability to a brittle empire. And we are informed this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne these days: a streamlined, fundamental-focused Labuschagne, less intensely fixated with minor adjustments. “It seems I’ve really stripped it back,” he said after his ton. “Not really too technical, just what I need to bat effectively.”

Clearly, this is doubted. Most likely this is a rebrand that exists only in Labuschagne’s own head: still furiously stripping down that technique from morning to night, going more back to basics than anyone has ever dared. You want less technical? Marnus will take time in the practice sessions with trainers and footage, exhaustively remoulding himself into the most basic batsman that has ever played. That’s the quality of the focused, and the quality that has always made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging sportsmen in the cricket.

Wider Context

Perhaps before this highly uncertain England-Australia contest, there is even a sort of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s endless focus. For England we have a side for whom technical study, not to mention self-review, is a forbidden topic. Feel the flavours. Focus on the present. Live in the instant.

In the other corner you have a individual like Labuschagne, a player completely dedicated with the game and totally indifferent by public perception, who sees cricket even in the gaps in the game, who approaches this quirky game with exactly the level of quirky respect it deserves.

His method paid off. During his shamanic phase – from the time he walked out to substitute for an injured Steve Smith at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 2019 to until late 2022 – Labuschagne somehow managed to see the game more deeply. To tap into it – through sheer intensity of will – on a elevated, strange, passionate tier. During his time with Kent league cricket, teammates would find him on the game day sitting on a park bench in a trance-like state, actually imagining every single ball of his innings. As per cricket statisticians, during the early stages of his career a unusually large proportion of catches were spilled from his batting. Remarkably Labuschagne had anticipated outcomes before anyone had a chance to affect it.

Current Struggles

Perhaps this was why his performance dipped the moment he reached the summit. There were no worlds left to visualise, just a empty space before his eyes. Additionally – he lost faith in his signature shot, got unable to move forward and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his trainer, Neil D’Costa, reckons a focus on white-ball cricket started to undermine belief in his alignment. Encouragingly: he’s just been dropped from the one-day team.

Certainly it’s relevant, too, that Labuschagne is a devoutly religious individual, an committed Christian who thinks that this is all preordained, who thus sees his task as one of reaching this optimal zone, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may seem to the mortal of us.

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