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Labuschagne carefully spreads butter on the top and bottom of a slice of white bread. “That’s the secret,” he states as he brings down the lid of his grilled cheese press. “There you go. Then you get it crisp on each side.” He opens the grill to reveal a golden square of delicious perfection, the gooey cheese happily bubbling away. “So this is the secret method,” he announces. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

By now, you may feel a glaze of ennui 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 eagerly promoted for an return to the Test side 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 endure a section of light-hearted musing about toasties, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of self-referential analysis in the “you” perspective. You sigh again.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a dish and moves toward the fridge. “Few try 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. Boom. Toastie’s ready to go.”

The Cricket Context

Look, let’s try it like this. Let’s address the sports aspect out of the way first? Small reward for your patience. And while there may only be six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s hundred against the Tigers – his third of the summer in all formats – feels importantly timed.

This is an Australian top order seriously lacking consistency and technique, revealed against the Proteas in the WTC final, shown up once more in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was omitted during that tour, but on a certain level you felt Australia were eager to bring him back at the earliest chance. Now he appears to have given them the perfect excuse.

Here is a approach the team should follow. The opener has one century in his past 44 innings. Konstas looks less like a Test opener and more like the good-looking star who might portray a cricketer in a Indian film. No other options has shown convincing form. McSweeney looks finished. Marcus Harris is still surprisingly included, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their skipper, Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this feels like a unusually thin squad, lacking command or stability, the kind of natural confidence that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a match begins.

The Batsman’s Revival

Here comes Labuschagne: a world No 1 Test batter as recently as 2023, freshly dropped from the ODI side, the ideal candidate to bring stability to a shaky team. And we are advised this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne now: a streamlined, no-frills Labuschagne, no longer as maniacally obsessed with small details. “I feel like I’ve really simplified things,” he said after his ton. “Not really too technical, just what I should score runs.”

Clearly, few accept this. In all likelihood this is a new approach that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s own head: still endlessly adjusting that approach from morning to night, going further toward simplicity than any player has attempted. You want less technical? Marnus will take time in the practice sessions with trainers and footage, thoroughly reshaping his game into the simplest player that has ever played. That’s the nature of the addict, and the characteristic that has always made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging players in the sport.

Wider Context

Perhaps before this inscrutably unpredictable historic rivalry, there is even a type of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s endless focus. For England we have a team for whom technical study, not to mention self-review, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Go with instinct. Focus on the present. Live in the instant.

For Australia you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a individual completely dedicated with the sport and wonderfully unconcerned by public perception, who finds cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who handles this unusual pursuit with just the right measure of odd devotion it demands.

And it worked. During his intense period – from the time he walked out to come in for a hurt Steve Smith at the famous ground in 2019 to around the end of 2022 – Labuschagne somehow managed to see the game more deeply. To tap into it – through sheer intensity of will – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his days playing club cricket, colleagues noticed him on the game day positioned on a seat in a trance-like state, mentally rehearsing all balls of his innings. As per cricket statisticians, during the initial period of his career a surprisingly high catches were dropped off his bat. Somehow Labuschagne had predicted events before others could react to influence it.

Recent Challenges

Perhaps this was why his performance dipped the point he became number one. There were no new heights to imagine, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he stopped trusting his cover drive, got stuck in his crease and seemed to misjudge his positioning. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his coach, Neil D’Costa, reckons a emphasis on limited-overs started to erode confidence in his technique. Encouragingly: he’s just been dropped from the one-day team.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a strongly faithful person, an evangelical Christian who believes that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his job as one of achieving this peak performance, no matter how mysterious it may appear to the ordinary people.

This approach, to my mind, has always been the main point of difference between him and Smith, a instinctive player