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Labuschagne methodically applies butter on the top and bottom of a slice of plain bread. “That’s the key,” he states as he closes the lid of his toastie maker. “Boom. Then you get it crisp on the outside.” He lifts the lid to reveal a golden square of pure toasted goodness, the melted cheese happily bubbling away. “So this is the trick of the trade,” he announces. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

At this stage, I sense a glaze of ennui is beginning to form across your eyes. The alarm bells of elaborate writing are blinking intensely. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne made 160 runs for his state team this week and is being feverishly talked up for an Australian Test recall before the England-Australia contest.

You likely wish to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to sit through three paragraphs of light-hearted musing about toasties, plus an further tangential section 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. “It’s uncommon,” he remarks, “but I genuinely enjoy the cold toastie. There, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, go bat, come back. Alright. It’s ideal.”

The Cricket Context

Alright, here’s the main point. How about we cover the cricket bit initially? Small reward for your patience. And while there may be just six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against the Tigers – his third of the summer in various games – feels importantly timed.

Here’s an Australia top three badly short of consistency and technique, exposed by South Africa in the WTC final, highlighted further in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was left out during that tour, but on one hand you sensed Australia were desperate to rehabilitate him at the first opportunity. Now he seems to have given them the right opportunity.

This represents a approach the team should follow. The opener has a single hundred in his past 44 innings. Sam Konstas looks hardly a Test opener and rather like the attractive performer who might act as a batsman in a Indian film. None of the alternatives has made a cogent case. McSweeney looks out of form. Marcus Harris is still oddly present, like dust or mold. Meanwhile their leader, Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this feels like a weirdly lightweight side, lacking command or stability, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often given Australia a lead before a ball is bowled.

Labuschagne’s Return

Here comes Labuschagne: a world No 1 Test batter as in the recent past, freshly dropped from the ODI side, the right person to restore order to a fragile lineup. And we are told this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne these days: a streamlined, fundamental-focused Labuschagne, not as extremely focused with technical minutiae. “I believe I have really simplified things,” he said after his century. “Less focused on technique, just what I need to score runs.”

Clearly, nobody truly believes this. In all likelihood this is a rebrand that exists just in Labuschagne’s mind: still furiously stripping down that technique from dawn to dusk, going more back to basics than any player has attempted. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will spend months in the training with trainers and footage, exhaustively remoulding himself into the most basic batsman that has ever been seen. This is simply the quality of the focused, and the characteristic that has long made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing players in the game.

Wider Context

Perhaps before this very open Ashes series, there is even a sort of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s endless focus. For England we have a team for whom detailed examination, especially personal critique, is a risky subject. Go with instinct. Stay in the moment. Smell the now.

On the opposite side you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a player utterly absorbed with cricket and magnificently unbothered by others’ opinions, who observes cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who treats this absurd sport with just the right measure of absurd reverence it demands.

And it worked. During his shamanic phase – from the moment he strode out to substitute for an injured the senior batsman at Lord’s in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne found a way to see the game more deeply. To tap into it – through pure determination – on a elevated, strange, passionate tier. During his time with English county cricket, teammates would find him on the morning of a game sitting on a park bench in a focused mindset, literally visualising each delivery of his time at the crease. Per Cricviz, during the early stages of his career a statistically unfathomable number of chances were missed when he batted. Remarkably Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before others could react to change it.

Recent Challenges

Maybe this was why his form started to decline the time he achieved top ranking. There were no new heights to imagine, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Furthermore – he began doubting his signature shot, got unable to move forward and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his trainer, D’Costa, reckons a attention to shorter formats started to erode confidence in his alignment. Positive development: he’s just been dropped from the one-day team.

Certainly it’s relevant, too, that Labuschagne is a strongly faithful person, an committed Christian who thinks that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his role as one of achieving this peak performance, despite being puzzling it may look to the mortal of us.

This approach, to my mind, has always been the key distinction between him and the other batsman, a inherently talented player