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The Australian batsman evenly coats butter on each surface of a slice of soft bread. “That’s the secret,” he explains as he lowers the lid of his toastie maker. “There you go. Then you get it golden on both sides.” He checks inside to reveal a perfectly browned of delicious perfection, the bubbling cheese happily sizzling within. “Here’s the key technique,” he declares. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

By now, I sense a layer of boredom is beginning to cover your eyes. The alarm bells of sportswriting pretension are flashing wildly. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne made 160 runs for Queensland this week and is being widely discussed for an return to the Test side before the Ashes.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about that. But first – you now understand with frustration – you’re going to have to get through several lines of light-hearted musing about grilled cheese, plus an additional unnecessary part of tiresome meta‑deconstruction in the direct address. You feel resigned.

He turns the sandwich on to a plate and moves toward the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he announces, “but I genuinely enjoy the toastie cold. Done, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, go for a hit, come back. Alright. Toastie’s ready to go.”

The Cricket Context

Look, here’s the main point. Shall we get the sports aspect out of the way first? Quick update for making it this far. And while there may only be six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against the Tasmanian side – his third this season in various games – feels importantly timed.

This is an Australia top three seriously lacking form and structure, shown up by the Proteas in the WTC final, shown up once more in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was dropped during that tour, but on some level you sensed Australia were eager to bring him back at the soonest moment. Now he looks to have given them the right opportunity.

This represents a plan that Australia need to work. Khawaja has one century in his last 44 knocks. The young batsman looks not quite a Test match opener and closer to the attractive performer who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood epic. No other options has made a cogent case. Nathan McSweeney looks cooked. Harris is still oddly present, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their leader, the pace bowler, is injured and suddenly this appears as a unusually thin squad, short of authority or balance, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a game starts.

Marnus’s Comeback

Enter Marnus: a leading Test player as just two years ago, recently omitted from the ODI side, the ideal candidate to bring stability to a shaky team. And we are told this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne currently: a streamlined, no-frills Labuschagne, no longer as extremely focused with small details. “It seems I’ve really cut out extras,” he said after his century. “Not overthinking, just what I must make runs.”

Naturally, this is doubted. Probably this is a new approach that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s personal view: still constantly refining that method from dawn to dusk, going deeper into fundamentals than anyone else would try. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will take time in the nets with advisors and replays, completely transforming into the most basic batsman that has ever been seen. That’s the quality of the focused, and the characteristic that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging sportsmen in the game.

The Broader Picture

Perhaps before this inscrutably unpredictable historic rivalry, there is even a type of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s endless focus. On England’s side we have a team for whom technical study, not to mention self-review, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Feel the flavours. Focus on the present. Live in the instant.

On the opposite side you have a individual like Labuschagne, a individual terminally obsessed with cricket and wonderfully unconcerned by others’ opinions, who sees cricket even in the gaps in the game, who handles this unusual pursuit with precisely the amount of odd devotion it deserves.

And it worked. During his focused era – from the time he walked out to replace a concussed Steve Smith at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 2019 to until late 2022 – Labuschagne somehow managed to see the game on another level. To reach it – through absolute focus – on a higher, weirder, more frenzied level. During his stint in English county cricket, colleagues noticed him on the game day resting on a bench in a meditative condition, mentally rehearsing each delivery of his innings. Per Cricviz, during the early stages of his career a statistically unfathomable catches were dropped off his bat. Remarkably Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before anyone had a chance to influence it.

Form Issues

Maybe this was why his career began to disintegrate the time he achieved top ranking. There were no new heights to imagine, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Furthermore – he began doubting his favorite stroke, got unable to move forward and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his coach, Neil D’Costa, believes a attention to shorter formats started to erode confidence in his technique. Encouragingly: he’s just been dropped from the ODI side.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a strongly faithful person, an religious believer who holds that this is all predetermined, who thus sees his task as one of reaching this optimal zone, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may appear to the mortal of us.

This, to my mind, has long been the main point of difference between him and Steve Smith, a more naturally gifted player