Marnus evenly coats butter on the top and bottom of a slice of plain bread. “That’s the key,” he explains as he closes the lid of his toastie maker. “Boom. Then you get it crisp on each side.” He checks inside to reveal a golden square of ideal crispiness, the melted cheese happily sizzling within. “And that’s the secret method,” he announces. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.
Already, it’s clear a glaze of ennui is beginning to appear in your eyes. The warning signs of sportswriting pretension are flashing wildly. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne hit 160 for his state team this week and is being widely discussed for an national team comeback before the Ashes.
You likely wish to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now understand with frustration – you’re going to have to get through three paragraphs of light-hearted musing about toasted sandwiches, plus an additional unnecessary part of self-referential analysis in the “you” perspective. You feel resigned.
Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a plate and moves toward the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he states, “but I actually like the grilled sandwich chilled. Done, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, go bat, come back. Alright. Sandwich is perfect.”
Look, let’s try it like this. 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 century against the Tigers – his third of the summer in all cricket – feels significantly impactful.
This is an Australia top three badly short of performance and method, exposed by South Africa in the World Test Championship final, highlighted further in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was omitted during that trip, but on some level you gathered Australia were eager to bring him back at the soonest moment. Now he seems to have given them the perfect excuse.
Here is a approach the team should follow. The opener has a single hundred in his last 44 knocks. The young batsman looks not quite a Test match opener and more like the handsome actor who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood epic. Other candidates has made a cogent case. Nathan McSweeney looks cooked. Marcus Harris is still oddly present, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their captain, Pat Cummins, is hurt and suddenly this seems like 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.
Enter Marnus: a leading Test player as just two years ago, recently omitted from the one-day team, the perfect character to return structure to a fragile lineup. And we are advised this is a composed and reflective Labuschagne currently: a pared-down, no-frills Labuschagne, no longer as maniacally obsessed with technical minutiae. “I believe I have really simplified things,” he said after his ton. “Less focused on technique, just what I should make runs.”
Clearly, few accept this. Probably this is a fresh image that exists just in Labuschagne’s mind: still constantly refining that approach from dawn to dusk, going deeper into fundamentals than anyone has ever dared. Like basic approach? Marnus will devote weeks in the training with coaches and video clips, exhaustively remoulding himself into the most basic batsman that has ever existed. This is just the trait of the obsessed, and the trait that has long made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging players in the cricket.
Maybe before this inscrutably unpredictable Ashes series, there is even a kind of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. In England we have a team for whom technical study, especially personal critique, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Trust your gut. Focus on the present. Live in the instant.
On the opposite side you have a player such as Labuschagne, a man terminally obsessed with the game and wonderfully unconcerned by others’ opinions, who finds cricket even in the moments outside play, who handles this unusual pursuit with exactly the level of absurd reverence it demands.
This approach succeeded. During his focused era – from the instant he appeared to replace a concussed Smith at the famous ground in 2019 to until late 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game more deeply. To tap into it – through pure determination – on a higher, weirder, more frenzied level. During his time with English county cricket, fellow players saw him on the day of a match sitting on a park bench in a focused mindset, actually imagining each delivery of his time at the crease. Per the analytics firm, during the initial period of his career a unusually large catches were spilled from his batting. In some way Labuschagne had anticipated outcomes before others could react to influence it.
Maybe this was why his career began to disintegrate the point he became number one. There were no further goals to picture, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Additionally – he began doubting his favorite stroke, got trapped on the crease and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his mentor, his coach, reckons a attention to shorter formats started to weaken assurance in his positioning. Encouragingly: he’s now excluded from the one-day team.
Certainly it’s relevant, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an committed Christian who thinks that this is all predetermined, who thus sees his job as one of reaching this optimal zone, despite being puzzling it may appear to the rest of us.
This mindset, to my mind, has always been the main point of difference between him and Smith, a instinctive player
