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Labuschagne carefully spreads butter on each surface of a slice of white bread. “That’s the key,” he tells the camera as he lowers the lid of his grilled cheese press. “Boom. Then you get it toasted on each side.” He opens the grill to reveal a perfectly browned of ideal crispiness, the bubbling cheese happily bubbling away. “Here’s the secret method,” he declares. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

By now, it’s clear a glaze of ennui is beginning to form across your eyes. The warning signs of sportswriting pretension are going off. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne hit 160 for his state team this week and is being eagerly promoted for an Australian Test recall before the England-Australia contest.

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 several lines of wobbling whimsy about grilled cheese, plus an additional unnecessary part of tiresome meta‑deconstruction in the “you” perspective. You sigh again.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a dish and walks across the fridge. “Few try this,” he states, “but I personally prefer the cold toastie. Done, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, head to practice, come back. Boom. It’s ideal.”

Back to Cricket

Look, here’s the main point. Shall we get the sports aspect initially? Quick update for your patience. And while there may still be six weeks until the series opener, Labuschagne’s hundred against Tasmania – his third in recent months in all formats – feels significantly impactful.

We have an Aussie opening batsmen seriously lacking consistency and technique, exposed by the South African team in the Test championship decider, shown up once more in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was dropped during that series, but on one hand you felt Australia were eager to bring him back at the earliest chance. Now he appears to have given them the right opportunity.

This represents a approach the team should follow. The opener has just one 100 in his recent 44 batting efforts. The young batsman looks hardly a first-innings batsman and rather like the handsome actor who might portray a cricketer in a Bollywood epic. None of the alternatives has shown convincing form. Nathan McSweeney looks cooked. Marcus Harris is still oddly present, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their captain, Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this seems like a weirdly lightweight side, lacking authority or balance, the kind of natural confidence that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a ball is bowled.

Labuschagne’s Return

Here comes Labuschagne: a top-ranked Test batsman as recently as 2023, freshly dropped from the ODI side, the right person to return structure to a fragile lineup. And we are advised this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne now: a pared-down, no-frills Labuschagne, not as maniacally obsessed with small details. “It seems I’ve really cut out extras,” he said after his ton. “Not overthinking, just what I must make runs.”

Clearly, few accept this. In all likelihood this is a fresh image that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s mind: still endlessly adjusting that method from morning to night, going further toward simplicity than anyone else would try. Like basic approach? Marnus will spend months in the practice sessions with advisors and replays, exhaustively remoulding himself into the simplest player that has ever been seen. This is just the trait of the obsessed, and the trait that has always made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating players in the sport.

Bigger Scene

Maybe before this very open Ashes series, there is even a sort of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s endless focus. In England we have a team for whom detailed examination, especially personal critique, is a risky subject. Trust your gut. Focus on the present. Embrace the current.

On the opposite side you have a player such as Labuschagne, a player utterly absorbed with the sport and magnificently unbothered by who knows about it, who observes cricket even in the gaps in the game, who treats this absurd sport with just the right measure of quirky respect it requires.

His method paid off. During his intense period – from the instant he appeared to replace a concussed the senior batsman at Lord’s in 2019 to around the end of 2022 – Labuschagne somehow managed to see the game with greater insight. To tap into it – through pure determination – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his stint in club cricket, fellow players saw him on the game day sitting on a park bench in a focused mindset, actually imagining all balls of his innings. According to Cricviz, during the initial period of his career a unusually large number of chances were dropped off his bat. In some way Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before fielders could respond to affect it.

Current Struggles

It’s possible this was why his performance dipped the moment he reached the summit. There were no worlds left to visualise, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he lost faith in his signature shot, got unable to move forward and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his mentor, Neil D’Costa, thinks a focus on white-ball cricket started to undermine belief in his alignment. Positive development: he’s recently omitted from the 50-over squad.

Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a strongly faithful person, an religious believer who holds that this is all predetermined, who thus sees his task as one of reaching this optimal zone, despite being puzzling it may seem to the mortal of us.

This mindset, to my mind, has always been the primary contrast between him and Smith, a more naturally gifted player