Labuschagne evenly coats butter on each surface of a slice of white bread. “That’s essential,” he tells the camera as he brings down the lid of his grilled cheese press. “There you go. Then you get it golden on each side.” He lifts the lid to reveal a toasted delight of ideal crispiness, the bubbling cheese happily sizzling within. “Here’s the key technique,” he declares. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.
Already, you may feel a layer of boredom is beginning to appear in your eyes. The alarm bells of overly fancy prose are going off. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne made 160 runs for Queensland Bulls this week and is being eagerly promoted for an return to the Test side before the Ashes series.
No doubt you’d prefer to read more about his performance. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to get through three paragraphs of playful digression about toasted sandwiches, plus an further tangential section of self-referential analysis in the direct address. You sigh again.
Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a dish and moves toward the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he announces, “but I genuinely enjoy the toastie cold. Boom, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, go bat, come back. Alright. Sandwich is perfect.”
Back to Cricket
Look, here’s the main point. How about we cover the sports aspect initially? Quick update for your patience. And while there may still be six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against the Tasmanian side – his third this season in all cricket – feels importantly timed.
We have an Australia top three badly short of consistency and technique, shown up by the Proteas in the World Test Championship final, shown up once more in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was left out during that series, but on a certain level you sensed Australia were desperate to rehabilitate him at the soonest moment. Now he seems to have given them the ideal reason.
Here is a approach the team should follow. Khawaja has one century in his past 44 innings. Sam Konstas looks not quite a Test opener and closer to the handsome actor who might play a Test opener in a Indian film. No other options has made a cogent case. McSweeney looks finished. Another option is still inexplicably hanging around, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their leader, Pat Cummins, is hurt and suddenly this appears as a surprisingly weak team, missing strength or equilibrium, the kind of built-in belief that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a ball is bowled.
The Batsman’s Revival
Enter Marnus: a top-ranked Test batsman as in the recent past, freshly dropped from the one-day team, the right person to return structure to a brittle empire. And we are advised this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne now: a simplified, back-to-basics Labuschagne, less maniacally obsessed with small details. “I believe I have really simplified things,” he said after his hundred. “Not really too technical, just what I must make runs.”
Of course, few accept this. Probably this is a new approach that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s personal view: still constantly refining that approach from dawn to dusk, going further toward simplicity than any player has attempted. Like basic approach? Marnus will devote weeks in the nets with advisors and replays, exhaustively remoulding himself into the most basic batsman that has ever played. This is simply the trait of the obsessed, and the characteristic that has long made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging players in the game.
Bigger Scene
Perhaps before this very open Ashes series, there is even a type of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s endless focus. In England we have a side for whom detailed examination, let alone self-analysis, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Feel the flavours. Be where the ball is. Live in the instant.
For Australia you have a player such as Labuschagne, a individual terminally obsessed with cricket and magnificently unbothered by who knows about it, who finds cricket even in the gaps in the game, who approaches this quirky game with just the right measure of quirky respect it deserves.
And it worked. During his intense period – from the instant he appeared to come in for a hurt the senior batsman at the famous ground in 2019 to until late 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game on another level. To tap into it – through pure determination – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his stint in club cricket, colleagues noticed him on the morning of a game resting on a bench in a meditative condition, actually imagining each delivery of his time at the crease. Per Cricviz, during the initial period of his career a surprisingly high catches were missed when he batted. In some way Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before others could react to change it.
Current Struggles
Maybe this was why his performance dipped the moment he reached the summit. There were no new heights to imagine, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he lost faith in his signature shot, got trapped on the crease and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his mentor, Neil D’Costa, thinks a emphasis on limited-overs started to erode confidence in his alignment. Positive development: he’s just been dropped from the one-day team.
Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a strongly faithful person, an evangelical Christian who believes that this is all predetermined, who thus sees his task as one of accessing this state of flow, 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 Smith, a more naturally gifted player
