🔗 Share this article

Marnus evenly coats butter on both sides of a slice of soft bread. “That’s essential,” he tells the camera as he closes the lid of his sandwich grill. “Perfect. Then you get it toasted on each side.” He checks inside to reveal a golden square of delicious perfection, the bubbling cheese happily melting inside. “Here’s the key technique,” he announces. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

By now, it’s clear a sense of disinterest is beginning to appear in your eyes. The warning signs of sportswriting pretension are going off. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne made 160 runs for his state team this week and is being feverishly talked up for an national team comeback before the Ashes.

You probably want to read more about that. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to endure several lines of light-hearted musing about toasted sandwiches, plus an additional unnecessary part of self-referential analysis in the second person. You feel resigned.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a serving plate and heads over the fridge. “Not many people do this,” he remarks, “but I personally prefer the grilled sandwich chilled. There, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, head to practice, come back. Perfect. It’s ideal.”

On-Field Matters

Alright, let’s try it like this. Let’s address the match details out of the way first? Quick update for your patience. And while there may still be six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s hundred against the Tasmanian side – his third this season in all formats – feels importantly timed.

This is an Australia top three clearly missing form and structure, shown up by the Proteas in the WTC final, exposed again in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was dropped during that trip, but on one hand you sensed Australia were eager to bring him back at the earliest chance. Now he appears to have given them the ideal reason.

And this is a approach the team should follow. Usman Khawaja has a single hundred in his last 44 knocks. Sam Konstas looks less like a Test match opener and closer to the attractive performer who might play a Test opener in a Bollywood epic. No other options has made a cogent case. One contender looks finished. Marcus Harris is still surprisingly included, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their skipper, Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this appears as a unusually thin squad, short of command or stability, the kind of built-in belief that has often given Australia a lead before a match begins.

The Batsman’s Revival

Step forward Marnus: a leading Test player as recently as 2023, freshly dropped from the 50-over squad, the right person to return structure to a shaky team. And we are informed this is a composed and reflective Labuschagne currently: a simplified, back-to-basics Labuschagne, not as maniacally obsessed with minor adjustments. “I feel like I’ve really stripped it back,” he said after his ton. “Not overthinking, just what I must score runs.”

Of course, few accept this. In all likelihood this is a fresh image that exists just in Labuschagne’s personal view: still constantly refining that technique from all day, going more back to basics than anyone has ever dared. Like basic approach? Marnus will spend months in the nets with advisors and replays, thoroughly reshaping his game into the simplest player that has ever existed. That’s the trait of the obsessed, and the quality that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging players in the sport.

The Broader Picture

Maybe before this highly uncertain Ashes series, there is even a sort of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. On England’s side we have a squad for whom any kind of analysis, let alone self-analysis, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Feel the flavours. Focus on the present. Embrace the current.

In the other corner you have a individual like Labuschagne, a man completely dedicated with the game and totally indifferent by public perception, who finds cricket even in the gaps in the game, who handles this unusual pursuit with exactly the level of absurd reverence it deserves.

This approach succeeded. During his shamanic phase – from the moment he strode out to substitute for an injured Smith at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne somehow managed to see the game with greater insight. To tap into it – through sheer intensity of will – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his stint in English county cricket, colleagues noticed him on the day of a match resting on a bench in a focused mindset, actually imagining every single ball of his time at the crease. As per the analytics firm, during the first few years of his career a statistically unfathomable number of chances were spilled from his batting. In some way Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before others could react to influence it.

Current Struggles

Maybe this was why his form started to decline the time he achieved top ranking. There were no further goals to picture, just a empty space before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he began doubting his favorite stroke, got stuck in his crease and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his mentor, his coach, reckons a attention to shorter formats started to undermine belief in his alignment. Positive development: he’s recently omitted from the one-day team.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a devoutly religious individual, an committed Christian who thinks that this is all preordained, who thus sees his role as one of achieving this peak performance, despite being puzzling it may appear to the rest of us.

This mindset, to my mind, has long been the key distinction between him and Steve Smith, a more naturally gifted player