The Three Lions Beware: Terminally Obsessed Labuschagne Goes To Core Principles

Labuschagne evenly coats butter on the top and bottom of a slice of plain bread. “That’s essential,” he explains as he lowers the lid of his grilled cheese press. “Boom. Then you get it golden on the outside.” He opens the grill to reveal a perfectly browned of pure toasted goodness, the gooey cheese happily sizzling within. “And that’s the trick of the trade,” he announces. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

By now, you may feel a glaze of ennui is beginning to appear in your eyes. The red lights of sportswriting pretension are blinking intensely. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne made 160 runs for Queensland Bulls this week and is being feverishly talked up for an return to the Test side before the Ashes series.

You probably want to read more about that. But first – you now understand with frustration – you’re going to have to sit through several lines of wobbling whimsy about grilled cheese, plus an additional unnecessary part of overly analytical commentary in the direct address. You feel resigned.

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

On-Field Matters

Alright, here’s the main point. Let’s address the cricket bit out of the way first? Quick update for your patience. And while there may still be six weeks until the series opener, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against the Tigers – his third in recent months in all cricket – feels importantly timed.

This is an Australia top three clearly missing form and structure, revealed against the Proteas in the World Test Championship final, exposed again 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 looks to have given them the ideal reason.

And this is a plan that Australia need to work. The opener has one century in his past 44 innings. Konstas looks hardly a Test match opener and rather like the good-looking star who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood epic. No other options has made a cogent case. Nathan McSweeney looks out of form. Marcus Harris is still inexplicably hanging around, like dust or mold. Meanwhile their leader, Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this seems like a weirdly lightweight side, lacking authority or balance, the kind of built-in belief that has often given Australia a lead before a game starts.

Labuschagne’s Return

Step forward Marnus: a leading Test player as just two years ago, recently omitted from the one-day team, the perfect character to restore order to a fragile lineup. And we are advised this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne these days: a pared-down, fundamental-focused Labuschagne, no longer as extremely focused with minor adjustments. “I believe I have really simplified things,” he said after his ton. “Less focused on technique, just what I need to bat effectively.”

Clearly, this is doubted. In all likelihood this is a new approach that exists just in Labuschagne’s personal view: still constantly refining that technique from dawn to dusk, going more back to basics than any player has attempted. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will spend months in the nets with trainers and footage, completely transforming into the most basic batsman that has ever played. That’s the trait of the obsessed, and the quality that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing sportsmen in the sport.

Bigger Scene

Maybe before this inscrutably unpredictable England-Australia contest, there is even a sort of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. In England we have a side for whom any kind of analysis, let alone self-analysis, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Trust your gut. Stay in the moment. Embrace the current.

On the opposite side you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a man completely dedicated with the game and wonderfully unconcerned by who knows about it, who observes cricket even in the gaps in the game, who treats this absurd sport with exactly the level of quirky respect it demands.

This approach succeeded. During his shamanic phase – from the time he walked out to come in for a hurt Smith at the famous ground in 2019 to until late 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game with greater insight. To access it – through absolute focus – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his days playing club cricket, fellow players saw him on the day of a match positioned on a seat in a trance-like state, actually imagining each delivery of his batting stint. According to cricket statisticians, during the initial period of his career a statistically unfathomable number of chances were missed when he batted. In some way Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before others could react to change it.

Form Issues

Perhaps this was why his career began to disintegrate 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 unable to move forward and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his trainer, Neil D’Costa, believes a attention to shorter formats started to weaken assurance in his alignment. Encouragingly: 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 religious believer who thinks that this is all preordained, who thus sees his role as one of reaching this optimal zone, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may seem to the mortal of us.

This approach, to my mind, has always been the main point of difference between him and the other batsman, a more naturally gifted player