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Marnus methodically applies butter on both sides of a slice of soft bread. “That’s the key,” he tells the camera as he brings down the lid of his sandwich grill. “There you go. Then you get it toasted on the outside.” He opens the grill to reveal a toasted delight of ideal crispiness, the gooey cheese happily bubbling away. “And that’s the secret method,” he declares. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

Already, you may feel a sense of disinterest is beginning to cover your eyes. The warning signs of overly fancy prose are blinking intensely. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne scored 160 for Queensland Bulls this week and is being feverishly talked up for an return to the Test side before the England-Australia contest.

You probably want to read more about his performance. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to endure several lines of wobbling whimsy about grilled cheese, plus an additional unnecessary part of self-referential analysis in the “you” perspective. You feel resigned.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a serving plate and walks across the fridge. “Few try this,” he remarks, “but I personally prefer the toastie cold. Done, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, go for a hit, come back. Alright. Toastie’s ready to go.”

On-Field Matters

Okay, let’s try it like this. How about we cover the match details to begin with? Small reward for your patience. And while there may only be six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s century against Tasmania – his third this season in all formats – feels importantly timed.

Here’s an Australian top order seriously lacking performance and method, shown up by South Africa in the Test championship decider, shown up once more in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was left out during that trip, but on one hand you gathered Australia were keen to restore him at the earliest chance. Now he looks to have given them the perfect excuse.

Here is a strategy Australia must implement. Khawaja has one century in his last 44 knocks. The young batsman looks less like a Test opener and more like the attractive performer who might act as a batsman in a Indian film. None of the alternatives has made a cogent case. Nathan McSweeney looks finished. Harris is still oddly present, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their captain, Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this appears as a surprisingly weak team, short of strength or equilibrium, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a match begins.

The Batsman’s Revival

Enter Marnus: a world No 1 Test batter as recently as 2023, freshly dropped from the one-day team, the right person to return structure to a fragile lineup. And we are advised this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne currently: a simplified, no-frills Labuschagne, no longer as maniacally obsessed with small details. “I feel like I’ve really stripped it back,” he said after his hundred. “Less focused on technique, just what I should score runs.”

Of course, nobody truly believes this. In all likelihood this is a fresh image that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s mind: still furiously stripping down that approach from morning to night, going further toward simplicity than anyone has ever dared. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will take time in the training with trainers and footage, thoroughly reshaping his game into the simplest player that has ever played. This is just the quality of the focused, and the quality that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating cricketers in the cricket.

The Broader Picture

It could be before this inscrutably unpredictable historic rivalry, there is even a type of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s endless focus. For England we have a side for whom detailed examination, let alone self-analysis, is a risky subject. Feel the flavours. Focus on the present. Live in the instant.

For Australia you have a player such as Labuschagne, a individual terminally obsessed with cricket and magnificently unbothered by others’ opinions, who sees cricket even in the moments outside play, who handles this unusual pursuit with exactly the level of quirky respect it deserves.

And it worked. During his shamanic phase – from the time he walked out to come in for a hurt Steve Smith at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 2019 to around the end of 2022 – Labuschagne found a way to see the game with greater insight. To access it – through absolute focus – on a elevated, strange, passionate tier. During his stint in club cricket, colleagues noticed him on the game day sitting on a park bench in a meditative condition, mentally rehearsing each delivery of his innings. Per cricket statisticians, during the early stages of his career a statistically unfathomable catches were missed when he batted. In some way Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before others could react to affect it.

Form Issues

It’s possible this was why his career began to disintegrate the moment he reached the summit. There were no worlds left to visualise, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Furthermore – he stopped trusting his signature shot, got unable to move forward and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his coach, his coach, reckons a emphasis on limited-overs started to undermine belief in his alignment. Positive development: he’s now excluded from the 50-over squad.

Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an committed Christian who thinks that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his job as one of reaching this optimal zone, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may appear to the ordinary people.

This mindset, to my mind, has always been the key distinction between him and the other batsman, a more naturally gifted player