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The Australian batsman carefully spreads butter on the top and bottom of a slice of plain bread. “That’s the key,” he tells the camera as he lowers the lid of his sandwich grill. “Boom. Then you get it crisp on the outside.” He opens the grill to reveal a golden square of pure toasted goodness, the bubbling cheese happily melting inside. “And that’s the secret method,” he explains. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

By now, you may feel a sense of disinterest is beginning to cover your eyes. The red lights of sportswriting pretension are flashing wildly. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne made 160 runs for Queensland Bulls this week and is being eagerly promoted for an national team comeback before the Ashes.

You probably want to read more about his performance. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to sit through three paragraphs of playful digression about toasties, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of tiresome meta‑deconstruction in the “you” perspective. You groan once more.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a dish and moves toward the fridge. “Not many people do this,” he remarks, “but I actually like the grilled sandwich chilled. Done, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, head to practice, come back. Boom. Toastie’s ready to go.”

The Cricket Context

Look, here’s the main point. How about we cover the match details to begin with? Small reward for reading until now. And while there may be just six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s hundred against the Tasmanian side – his third of the summer in various games – feels significantly impactful.

Here’s an Australia top three badly short of form and structure, exposed by South Africa in the World Test Championship final, shown up once more in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was dropped during that tour, but on some level you gathered Australia were eager to bring him back at the first opportunity. Now he looks to have given them the ideal reason.

This represents a strategy Australia must implement. Usman Khawaja has just one 100 in his past 44 innings. Konstas looks not quite a Test opener and closer to the attractive performer who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood movie. Other candidates has shown convincing form. Nathan McSweeney looks out of form. Another option is still inexplicably hanging around, like dust or mold. Meanwhile their captain, the pace bowler, is injured and suddenly this appears as a weirdly lightweight side, short of authority or balance, the kind of built-in belief that has often helped Australia dominate before a game starts.

The Batsman’s Revival

Enter Marnus: a world No 1 Test batter as recently as 2023, just left out from the one-day team, the ideal candidate to return structure to a shaky team. And we are told this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne these days: a simplified, back-to-basics Labuschagne, not as maniacally obsessed with minor adjustments. “I believe I have really stripped it back,” he said after his ton. “Less focused on technique, just what I should bat effectively.”

Naturally, 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 deeper into fundamentals than any player has attempted. You want less technical? Marnus will take time in the nets with advisors and replays, exhaustively remoulding himself into the most basic batsman that has ever been seen. This is just the nature of the addict, and the characteristic that has always made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating sportsmen in the game.

The Broader Picture

Maybe before this highly uncertain England-Australia contest, there is even a kind of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. In England we have a team for whom detailed examination, let alone self-analysis, is a forbidden topic. Go with instinct. Focus on the present. Embrace the current.

In the other corner you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a player utterly absorbed with cricket and totally indifferent by who knows about it, who observes cricket even in the gaps in the game, who treats this absurd sport with just the right measure of quirky respect it deserves.

This approach succeeded. During his intense period – from the time he walked out to replace a concussed 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 reach it – through pure determination – on a elevated, strange, passionate tier. During his time with club cricket, colleagues noticed him on the day of a match sitting on a park bench in a focused mindset, literally visualising all balls of his batting stint. According to Cricviz, during the first few years of his career a surprisingly high catches were spilled from his batting. Somehow Labuschagne had predicted events before anyone had a chance to affect it.

Form Issues

Maybe this was why his performance dipped the point he became number one. There were no further goals to picture, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he lost faith in his signature shot, got trapped on the crease and seemed to misjudge his positioning. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his mentor, Neil D’Costa, thinks a emphasis on limited-overs started to undermine belief in his technique. Positive development: he’s just been dropped from the one-day team.

Certainly it’s relevant, too, that Labuschagne is a devoutly religious individual, an religious believer who holds that this is all predetermined, who thus sees his role as one of accessing this state of flow, no matter how mysterious it may appear to the mortal of us.

This approach, to my mind, has consistently been the primary contrast between him and Smith, a instinctive player