Before he conquered his home patch, Marnus Labuschagne, now a Wisden Cricketer of the Year, found his groove in England and Wales. He speaks to Taha Hashim about his extraordinary summer last year with Glamorgan and Australia.

The first item on this summer’s agenda should have been an evening at the Wisden dinner. “My county stint wasn’t going to start till the 19th, but I was gonna make my way over earlier. It’s such a special moment. If it was possible to get over there for the award I would have done anything not to miss it.” Were it not for the coronavirus pandemic, Marnus Labuschagne would have been nearing his return to Glamorgan for a second consecutive summer, but this time with a little less to prove. This time, as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year. It’s been some rise.

Labuschagne was No.96 in the Test batting rankings when Glamorgan announced his signing a year ago as cover for his compatriot Shaun Marsh, who was off to the World Cup. “It was something I’d always wanted to do,” says the 25-year-old. “I’d always wanted to play county cricket. I didn’t have the greatest finish to the summer in Australia, so it was an opportunity for me to push my case to get myself in Ashes contention.”

With just four first-class centuries and an underwhelming Test average of 26.25, what followed belied his track record. In 10 Championship matches, five fifties and five hundreds helped Labuschagne to 1,114 runs at an average of 65.52. County cricket, seen as the finishing school for Australian batsmen, had delivered another graduate.

Plenty had been learned on the course too. To cope with the more volatile Dukes ball there was a realignment of his hips at the crease, courtesy of head coach Matthew Maynard, and teething troubles occurred early on as Labuschagne was occasionally bowled or lbw looking to leave the ball. The breakthrough innings wasn’t covered in glory.

“This is going to sound a bit silly, but I made 37 against Derbyshire at Swansea and I would say that was one of my favourite innings because of the way I played. That really set me up to trust my game and trust how I went about it. That was one of the first games that I really said to Matt [Maynard], ‘This is what I’m going to do, this is my thinking’, and Matt gave me all the backing I needed.”

It was clear to see a man well and truly versed in the rhythms of his own game when Labuschagne first took to the crease for Australia last summer. Not at Lord’s in the Ashes but in a trial match played between the Australians at the Ageas Bowl prior to the announcement of the final touring party. The handful of spectators present on the opening day witnessed the fall of 17 wickets on a lively pitch – alongside a fluent 41 from Labuschagne in a total of 105. While others – some in whites immediately after the World Cup – were helter-skelter when challenged by the moving ball, Labuschagne’s forward defence was beyond resolute, the head firmly over the ball, the front knee bending in textbook fashion, the commitment absolute. A place in the squad of 17 beckoned. Labuschagne was only cautiously confident when chairman of selectors Trevor Hohns broke the news.

“I spoke to the [Glamorgan] director of cricket Mark Wallace in the morning and said, ‘If I’m not in are you happy to come pick me up?’ Glamorgan were playing a T20 that night so I was already sort of organising if it didn’t happen. He [Hohns] actually came in and said, ‘Where are Glamorgan playing tonight?’ and followed that with ‘You can tell them that you’re not playing!’”

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“It was amazing. The build-up, the crowds, everything. Even now, I miss it. I miss that intense pressure, everyone watching. It was something special.”

It was Labuschagne’s first Ashes, and it’s unlikely to be his last. After months of runs to get his invitation to the do, he remained on the outer to begin with. But then came the force of Archer, the fall of Smith and the answer to the question that will infiltrate pub quizzes for years to come: who was the first-ever concussion substitute in Test cricket?

“When Steve got hit, it came through my mind, to be a concussion sub. As a batsman who bowls leg-spin, I’m quite like-for-like, I’ve got a chance if it happens. Steve then came out and batted again so I didn’t think too much of it. The next morning we had a training session and I was facing Mitchell Starc, James Pattinson and Michael Neser, and there wasn’t really too much thought about actually playing. And then Tim Paine came down for an early hit while I was in the nets facing the big boys and said, ‘Look mate, I think you’re playing’. I faced two more balls and was like ‘I’m getting out of this net. I’m not gonna break my finger or injure myself before getting an opportunity to play at Lord’s’.”

When the opportunity came, Labuschagne’s like-for-likeness held no bounds. He too was felled by an Archer bouncer, from the first legitimate ball he faced in the series. From the press box came the initial murmurs: how long would this young pretender last? His immediate reaction, to get straight back to his feet, suggested some thirst for the fight.

“If you get hit, you’ve just got to get up, no matter what happens. How much it hurts. Just get up. It was just weird when it did happen. My first instinct was, ‘Get up. Get up and get in the contest’. I got up, looked at him and was just kind of saying, ‘I’m ready to go’. It was all adrenaline.”

There was to be no bunkering down as Labuschagne unfurled stroke after stroke. He swept through square and clipped through midwicket, and just like Smith proved a difficult man to remove.

“Coming in and replacing Steve Smith, the expectations were quite low. You get an opportunity and I just decided that I’m going to play the way I play. And it just came down to the process, trusting the way you want to play, knowing where you could score and where you couldn’t.”

An innings of 59 to help Australia to a draw hinted at the makings of a star, and confirmation arrived at Headingley, with his 74 the saving grace in a first-innings total of 179. “I would probably say that’s one of the best innings I’ve ever played. How the bowlers were bowling, the toughness of the conditions – I felt real good out there. I was making real good decisions wherever they were bowling, I was leaving it quite well, I was playing at the right balls.”

The Test also included the finest spell of bowling Labuschagne faced last summer, delivered by a man possessed. “Ben Stokes’ spell at Headingley in the second innings – I remember me and Matthew Wade coming together and going, ‘This is literally the hardest thing we’ve ever done’. The ball was swinging so nicely out of his hand, but it was so tough to read. He had me dropped twice: by [Joe] Root at first slip and then an inswinger from around the wicket that I nicked to Jonny Bairstow and he dropped it. That was definitely one of the best spells I’ve faced.”

And then came the miracle knock, the one that meant the wait to retain the Ashes would have to continue. “We just got beat by one of the greatest Test innings of all time. It was amazing watching it, and devastating. We went back that night, had a quiet chat in the team room, just relaxed, watched a bit of a movie and spent time with each other. From the next morning it was, ‘How do we get back from that, how can we win, and how can we dominate the next game we play and let that go?’ From there it was that real clarity, that real belief that we were able to do it and we were the better team.”

At Old Trafford came a first glimpse of Labuschagne and Smith together in Test cricket, the former finally getting to bat with his idol as the pair put on a stand of 116 in the first innings. “It was an amazing moment,” says Labuschagne, with a bit of extra giddiness in his voice. “I was really hoping I didn’t get out before he came in because he’s a great player and someone I’ve always wanted to bat with.”

What is their relationship at the crease like? “Early in the innings there’s not too much talk at all. He’s more just about relaxing and I just try and accommodate where I can. When we sort of get going then we talk about what the bowlers are trying to do and how we can combat that. Our strengths are quite similar – we both like hitting the ball on the leg side, we both cover the stumps – so we can bounce off each other a fair bit about how to go about the game.” Labuschagne shares Smith’s affinity for superstition too. “I hate it when the bail on the off side hangs over the edge of the stump. I always make sure I tuck that in.”

In the second innings, Labuschagne finally failed to reach fifty in the series, but it mattered little as Australia retained the urn in England for the first time in 18 years. “The celebrations after, that’s something I’ll never forget. To come back from Headingley, with everyone writing us off, to go to Old Trafford and win there was something pretty special.”

The less said about The Oval, the better. To win the Ashes outright is now one for the bucket list. Labuschagne’s been ticking things off pretty quickly, too. A first Test hundred arrived during the Australian summer against Pakistan, and he added three more over the four subsequent Tests. That average is now looking very pretty at 63.43, higher than a certain teammate of his. He now sits behind just Smith and Virat Kohli in the Test batting rankings.

Yet for all the glory at home, it was the British summer that revealed the makings of Australia’s latest batting star. “I really enjoyed that clarity of just being able to play cricket and not think of much else. I’ve got more family here [in Australia], I’ve got jobs to do around the house, so there are a few more responsibilities. I think I really enjoyed that almost cricket isolation in Wales, and then in England.”