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Labuschagne methodically applies butter on the top and bottom of a slice of soft bread. “That’s essential,” he tells the camera as he closes the lid of his grilled cheese press. “There you go. Then you get it crisp on the outside.” He lifts the lid to reveal a perfectly browned of delicious perfection, the gooey cheese happily sizzling within. “Here’s the trick of the trade,” he explains. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

At this stage, you may feel a layer of boredom is beginning to appear in your eyes. The alarm bells of sportswriting pretension are going off. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne hit 160 for Queensland Bulls this week and is being eagerly promoted for an Australian Test recall before the Ashes.

You probably want to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to sit through several lines of wobbling whimsy about grilled cheese, plus an further tangential section of self-referential analysis in the “you” perspective. You sigh again.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a plate and walks across the fridge. “Few try this,” he states, “but I genuinely enjoy the cold toastie. Done, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, head to practice, come back. Boom. Toastie’s ready to go.”

On-Field Matters

Okay, let’s try it like this. How about we cover the sports aspect out of the way first? Quick update for making it this far. And while there may still be six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s hundred against the Tigers – his third in recent months in all formats – feels significantly impactful.

This is an Australian top order seriously lacking performance and method, shown up by the Proteas in the Test championship decider, exposed again in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was left out during that tour, but on some level you gathered Australia were keen to restore him at the first opportunity. Now he seems to have given them the perfect excuse.

This represents a plan that Australia need to work. Usman Khawaja has one century in his recent 44 batting efforts. Konstas looks less like a Test match opener and more like the handsome actor who might portray a cricketer in a Indian film. Other candidates has made a cogent case. One contender looks finished. Harris is still inexplicably hanging around, like dust or mold. Meanwhile their skipper, the pace bowler, is injured and suddenly this appears as a unusually thin squad, lacking strength or equilibrium, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often given Australia a lead before a game starts.

Marnus’s Comeback

Here comes Labuschagne: a leading Test player as recently as 2023, recently omitted from the one-day team, the perfect character to restore order to a brittle empire. And we are advised this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne these days: a pared-down, no-frills Labuschagne, no longer as extremely focused with small details. “I believe I have really simplified things,” he said after his hundred. “Not really too technical, just what I should bat effectively.”

Naturally, few accept this. Probably this is a rebrand that exists only in Labuschagne’s personal view: still constantly refining that method from morning to night, going deeper into fundamentals than anyone else would try. You want less technical? Marnus will devote weeks in the training with trainers and footage, exhaustively remoulding himself into the most basic batsman that has ever played. This is just the nature of the addict, and the trait that has long made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing players in the sport.

Bigger Scene

Maybe before this inscrutably unpredictable historic rivalry, there is even a type of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s constant dedication. On England’s side we have a team for whom detailed examination, not to mention self-review, is a risky subject. Trust your gut. Stay in the moment. Smell the now.

In the other corner you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a man completely dedicated with cricket and wonderfully unconcerned by public perception, who finds cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who handles this unusual pursuit with precisely the amount of absurd reverence it requires.

This approach succeeded. During his focused era – from the instant he appeared to replace a concussed Steve Smith at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne found a way to see the game more deeply. To tap into it – through pure determination – on a higher, weirder, more frenzied level. During his stint in Kent league cricket, colleagues noticed him on the morning of a game sitting on a park bench in a trance-like state, mentally rehearsing every single ball of his innings. Per cricket statisticians, during the first few years of his career a unusually large proportion of catches were spilled from his batting. Somehow Labuschagne had predicted events before others could react to influence it.

Current Struggles

Perhaps this was why his performance dipped the moment he reached the summit. There were no further goals to picture, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Additionally – he stopped trusting his cover drive, got trapped on the crease and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his trainer, Neil D’Costa, thinks a attention to shorter formats started to erode confidence in his technique. Encouragingly: he’s now excluded 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 task as one of reaching this optimal zone, no matter how mysterious it may look to the rest of us.

This, to my mind, has consistently been the main point of difference between him and Smith, a more naturally gifted player