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Marnus carefully spreads butter on the top and bottom of a slice of white bread. “That’s the secret,” he tells the camera as he closes the lid of his grilled cheese press. “Perfect. Then you get it crisp on both sides.” He lifts the lid to reveal a golden square of pure toasted goodness, the melted cheese happily melting inside. “Here’s the secret method,” he explains. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

At this stage, you may feel a layer of boredom is beginning to form across your eyes. The alarm bells of elaborate writing are going off. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne scored 160 for Queensland Bulls this week and is being eagerly promoted for an Australian Test recall before the England-Australia contest.

You likely wish to read more about his performance. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to sit through three paragraphs of playful digression about grilled cheese, plus an further tangential section of overly analytical commentary in the second person. You feel resigned.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a serving plate and walks across the fridge. “Few try this,” he remarks, “but I actually like the grilled sandwich chilled. There, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, go bat, come back. Boom. Sandwich is perfect.”

The Cricket Context

Okay, here’s the main point. How about we cover the match details to begin with? Quick update for your patience. And while there may still be six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against the Tigers – his third in recent months in all formats – feels significantly impactful.

We have an Aussie opening batsmen badly short of performance and method, shown up by the South African team in the World Test Championship final, shown up once more in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was left out during that series, but on some level you felt Australia were keen to restore him at the earliest chance. Now he appears to have given them the ideal reason.

Here is a strategy Australia must implement. Khawaja has one century in his past 44 innings. Sam Konstas looks not quite a Test match opener and more like the good-looking star who might portray a cricketer in a Indian film. No other options has presented a strong argument. McSweeney looks cooked. Another option is still surprisingly included, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their skipper, Cummins, is injured and suddenly this feels like a weirdly lightweight side, short of strength or equilibrium, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often helped Australia dominate before a match begins.

The Batsman’s Revival

Here comes Labuschagne: a top-ranked Test batsman as in the recent past, recently omitted from the ODI side, the perfect character to bring stability to a shaky team. And we are told this is a composed and reflective Labuschagne now: a streamlined, fundamental-focused Labuschagne, no longer as intensely fixated with technical minutiae. “I believe I have really stripped it back,” he said after his ton. “Not really too technical, just what I must make runs.”

Naturally, nobody truly believes this. Probably this is a new approach that exists only in Labuschagne’s mind: still endlessly adjusting that approach from morning to night, going more back to basics than anyone else would try. Like basic approach? Marnus will devote weeks in the practice sessions with coaches and video clips, exhaustively remoulding himself into the simplest player that has ever played. This is just the quality of the focused, and the quality that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating players in the game.

Wider Context

Perhaps before this highly uncertain historic rivalry, there is even a sort of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s constant dedication. In England we have a squad for whom detailed examination, let alone self-analysis, is a risky subject. Feel the flavours. Focus on the present. Live in the instant.

For Australia you have a individual like Labuschagne, a man terminally obsessed with the game and wonderfully unconcerned by who knows about it, who finds cricket even in the gaps in the game, who treats this absurd sport with precisely the amount of quirky respect it requires.

This approach succeeded. During his focused era – from the instant he appeared to substitute for an injured the senior batsman at the famous ground in 2019 to until late 2022 – Labuschagne found a way to see the game on another level. To reach it – through sheer intensity of will – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his time with English county cricket, teammates would find him on the game day positioned on a seat in a focused mindset, literally visualising every single ball of his time at the crease. As per Cricviz, during the early stages of his career a unusually large proportion of catches were spilled from his batting. In some way Labuschagne had predicted events before fielders could respond to affect it.

Recent Challenges

Perhaps this was why his performance dipped the moment he reached the summit. There were no worlds left to visualise, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he lost faith in his favorite stroke, got trapped on the crease and seemed to misjudge his positioning. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his coach, D’Costa, reckons a emphasis on limited-overs started to weaken assurance in his alignment. Good news: he’s just been dropped from the ODI side.

No doubt it’s important, 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 role as one of achieving this peak performance, despite being puzzling it may appear to the mortal of us.

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