🔗 Share this article

Marnus methodically applies butter on both sides of a slice of white bread. “That’s the secret,” he tells the camera as he closes the lid of his toastie maker. “Perfect. Then you get it golden on both sides.” He lifts the lid to reveal a toasted delight of ideal crispiness, the melted cheese happily bubbling away. “Here’s the key technique,” he explains. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

Already, it’s clear a sense of disinterest is beginning to form across your eyes. The alarm bells of sportswriting pretension are going off. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne hit 160 for his state team this week and is being feverishly talked up for an return to the Test side before the England-Australia contest.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to sit through three paragraphs of light-hearted musing about toasted sandwiches, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of tiresome meta‑deconstruction in the second person. You sigh again.

He turns the sandwich on to a plate and walks across the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he states, “but I genuinely enjoy the cold toastie. There, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, go for a hit, come back. Perfect. Sandwich is perfect.”

On-Field Matters

Okay, to cut to the chase. How about we cover the match details out of the way first? Little treat for your patience. And while there may only be six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s century against the Tasmanian side – his third of the summer in various games – feels importantly timed.

We have an Australia top three badly short of form and structure, exposed by South Africa in the WTC final, exposed again in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was dropped during that tour, but on one hand you gathered Australia were eager to bring him back at the first opportunity. Now he seems to have given them the perfect excuse.

And this is a strategy Australia must implement. Usman Khawaja has just one 100 in his recent 44 batting efforts. Konstas looks not quite a first-innings batsman and more like the attractive performer who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood movie. None of the alternatives has made a cogent case. Nathan McSweeney looks cooked. Another option is still oddly present, like dust or mold. Meanwhile their captain, Pat Cummins, is hurt and suddenly this appears as a surprisingly weak team, short of command or stability, the kind of built-in belief that has often given Australia a lead before a match begins.

Labuschagne’s Return

Step forward Marnus: a leading Test player as recently as 2023, freshly dropped from the one-day team, the ideal candidate to restore order to a fragile lineup. And we are told this is a composed and reflective Labuschagne these days: a streamlined, no-frills Labuschagne, no longer as extremely focused with small details. “I feel like I’ve really cut out extras,” he said after his hundred. “Not overthinking, just what I should bat effectively.”

Naturally, this is doubted. In all likelihood this is a fresh image that exists just in Labuschagne’s mind: still furiously stripping down that approach from all day, going deeper into fundamentals than anyone has ever dared. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will take time in the training with coaches and video clips, completely transforming into the simplest player that has ever existed. This is simply the trait of the obsessed, and the characteristic that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing cricketers in the cricket.

The Broader Picture

Perhaps before this inscrutably unpredictable Ashes series, there is even a type of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s constant dedication. In England we have a team for whom any kind of analysis, especially personal critique, is a forbidden topic. Trust your gut. Stay in the moment. Embrace the current.

For Australia you have a individual like Labuschagne, a player terminally obsessed with the sport and totally indifferent by public perception, who finds cricket even in the gaps in the game, who approaches this quirky game with just the right measure of quirky respect it demands.

His method paid off. During his intense period – from the moment he strode out to come in for a hurt 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 tap into it – through pure determination – on a elevated, strange, passionate tier. During his stint in English county cricket, fellow players saw him on the morning of a game sitting on a park bench in a meditative condition, literally visualising every single ball of his innings. As per the analytics firm, during the initial period of his career a unusually large number of chances were dropped off his bat. Somehow Labuschagne had predicted events before others could react to change it.

Current Struggles

Perhaps this was why his performance dipped 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 stuck in his crease and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his mentor, his coach, reckons a emphasis on limited-overs started to undermine belief in his positioning. Encouragingly: he’s recently omitted from the one-day team.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an committed Christian who believes that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his task as one of accessing this state of flow, no matter how mysterious it may appear to the ordinary people.

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