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The Australian batsman carefully spreads butter on each surface of a slice of plain bread. “That’s the key,” he states as he closes the lid of his toastie maker. “There you go. Then you get it toasted on each side.” He opens the grill to reveal a toasted delight of ideal crispiness, the melted cheese happily melting inside. “Here’s the key technique,” he announces. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

Already, I sense a layer of boredom is beginning to form across your eyes. The warning signs of sportswriting pretension are flashing wildly. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne hit 160 for Queensland Bulls this week and is being feverishly talked up for an national team comeback before the Ashes.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about that. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to get through three paragraphs of playful digression about toasted sandwiches, plus an additional unnecessary part of self-referential analysis in the direct address. You feel resigned.

He turns the sandwich on to a dish and moves toward the fridge. “Few try this,” he remarks, “but I personally prefer the grilled sandwich chilled. Boom, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, go for a hit, come back. Alright. It’s ideal.”

The Cricket Context

Okay, to cut to the chase. How about we cover the cricket bit to begin with? Small reward for your patience. And while there may only be six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against Tasmania – his third in recent months in all cricket – feels importantly timed.

We have an Australia top three seriously lacking consistency and technique, revealed against South Africa in the WTC final, highlighted further in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was omitted during that tour, but on some level you gathered Australia were desperate to rehabilitate him at the first opportunity. Now he seems to have given them the perfect excuse.

Here is a approach the team should follow. Khawaja has just one 100 in his last 44 knocks. Konstas looks less like a first-innings batsman and more like the attractive performer who might portray a cricketer in a Indian film. None of the alternatives has shown convincing form. Nathan McSweeney looks out of form. Another option is still inexplicably hanging around, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their captain, Pat Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this feels like a surprisingly weak team, missing authority or balance, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often given Australia a lead before a game starts.

The Batsman’s Revival

Step forward Marnus: a world No 1 Test batter as just two years ago, just left out from the one-day team, the ideal candidate to bring stability to a fragile lineup. And we are told this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne currently: a streamlined, back-to-basics Labuschagne, less extremely focused with technical minutiae. “It seems I’ve really cut out extras,” he said after his hundred. “Not really too technical, just what I must make runs.”

Of course, few accept this. Most likely this is a rebrand that exists only in Labuschagne’s personal view: still furiously stripping down that technique from dawn to dusk, going deeper into fundamentals than any player has attempted. You want less technical? Marnus will take time in the nets with advisors and replays, thoroughly reshaping his game into the least technical batter that has ever played. That’s the trait of the obsessed, and the trait that has long made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing cricketers in the cricket.

Bigger Scene

Perhaps before this highly uncertain historic rivalry, there is even a sort of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s endless focus. For England we have a side for whom technical study, not to mention self-review, is a risky subject. Trust your gut. Be where the ball is. Live in the instant.

On the opposite side you have a individual like Labuschagne, a player terminally obsessed with cricket and magnificently unbothered by who knows about it, who observes cricket even in the gaps in the game, who handles this unusual pursuit with exactly the level of quirky respect it demands.

His method paid off. During his intense period – from the time he walked out to replace a concussed the senior batsman at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 2019 to until late 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game on another level. To tap into it – through absolute focus – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his stint in English county cricket, teammates would find him on the game day positioned on a seat in a trance-like state, mentally rehearsing every single ball of his time at the crease. According to cricket statisticians, during the early stages of his career a unusually large number of chances were dropped off his bat. Somehow Labuschagne had anticipated outcomes before fielders could respond to affect it.

Form Issues

It’s possible this was why his career began to disintegrate the point he became number one. There were no further goals to picture, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Additionally – he began doubting his favorite stroke, got unable to move forward and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his trainer, D’Costa, believes a focus on white-ball cricket started to weaken assurance in his positioning. Positive development: he’s now excluded from the ODI side.

Certainly it’s relevant, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an religious believer 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 look to the rest of us.

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