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Labuschagne evenly coats butter on each surface of a slice of plain bread. “That’s the key,” he tells the camera as he closes the lid of his grilled cheese press. “Perfect. Then you get it toasted on each side.” He lifts the lid to reveal a perfectly browned of delicious perfection, the gooey cheese happily bubbling away. “Here’s the key technique,” he declares. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

At this stage, I sense a sense of disinterest is beginning to appear in your eyes. The alarm bells of overly fancy prose are flashing wildly. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne hit 160 for Queensland Bulls this week and is being feverishly talked up for an national team comeback before the Ashes.

You probably want to read more about his performance. But first – you now understand with frustration – you’re going to have to sit through a section of light-hearted musing about toasties, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of self-referential analysis in the direct address. You groan once more.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a serving plate and heads over the fridge. “Not many people do this,” he states, “but I personally prefer the grilled sandwich chilled. Done, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, head to practice, come back. Boom. Sandwich is perfect.”

The Cricket Context

Look, to cut to the chase. Shall we get the sports aspect out of the way first? Quick update for your patience. And while there may be just six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s hundred against the Tasmanian side – his third in recent months in all formats – feels quietly decisive.

This is an Australian top order seriously lacking consistency and technique, exposed by South Africa in the WTC final, exposed again in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was left out during that tour, but on a certain level you gathered Australia were desperate to rehabilitate him at the soonest moment. Now he looks to have given them the ideal reason.

This represents a plan that Australia need to work. The opener has a single hundred in his past 44 innings. Konstas looks hardly a Test match opener and rather like the handsome actor who might play a Test opener in a Bollywood epic. None of the alternatives has shown convincing form. McSweeney looks finished. Marcus Harris is still surprisingly included, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their captain, the pace bowler, is hurt and suddenly this feels like a unusually thin squad, missing strength or equilibrium, the kind of built-in belief that has often given Australia a lead before a ball is bowled.

Labuschagne’s Return

Step forward Marnus: a world No 1 Test batter as in the recent past, recently omitted from the one-day team, the perfect character to bring stability to a shaky team. And we are told this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne these days: a simplified, back-to-basics Labuschagne, no longer as maniacally obsessed with small details. “I believe I have really cut out extras,” he said after his ton. “Less focused on technique, just what I must score runs.”

Naturally, few accept this. Probably this is a fresh image that exists just in Labuschagne’s mind: still endlessly adjusting that method from all day, going deeper into fundamentals than any player has attempted. You want less technical? Marnus will spend months in the practice sessions with trainers and footage, completely transforming into the least technical batter that has ever existed. This is just the quality of the focused, and the trait that has long made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging cricketers in the sport.

Bigger Scene

Maybe before this inscrutably unpredictable England-Australia contest, there is even a sort of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. On England’s side we have a side for whom any kind of analysis, especially personal critique, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Trust your gut. Stay in the moment. Live in the instant.

On the opposite side you have a individual like Labuschagne, a man utterly absorbed with the game and totally indifferent by others’ opinions, who finds cricket even in the gaps in the game, who treats this absurd sport with just the right measure of odd devotion it demands.

And it worked. During his focused era – from the time he walked out to come in for a hurt Smith at the famous ground in 2019 to around the end of 2022 – Labuschagne found a way to see the game on another level. To access it – through sheer intensity of will – on a higher, weirder, more frenzied level. During his days playing English county cricket, teammates would find him on the game day resting on a bench in a trance-like state, mentally rehearsing all balls of his innings. Per cricket statisticians, during the initial period of his career a statistically unfathomable catches were spilled from his batting. Remarkably Labuschagne had anticipated outcomes before anyone had a chance to affect it.

Current Struggles

Maybe this was why his career began to disintegrate the point he became number one. There were no new heights to imagine, just a empty space before his eyes. Additionally – he began doubting his signature shot, got unable to move forward and seemed to misjudge his positioning. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his coach, his coach, believes a emphasis on limited-overs started to erode confidence in his alignment. Encouragingly: he’s just been dropped from the one-day team.

Certainly it’s relevant, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an committed Christian who holds that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his task as one of achieving this peak performance, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may seem to the rest of us.

This, to my mind, has consistently been the key distinction between him and the other batsman, a more naturally gifted player