The ancients understood that the mind rules the body, meaning any real battle against adversity is fought upstairs first. For Marnus Labuschagne, as he looks to find his best form again, any turnaround has to start in his head.
I learned early in my career that my attitude and thought processes mattered more than how many balls I hit in the nets. Mindless practice was worse than no practice at all. To succeed, I knew I had to improve at the things I needed to be good at.
I realised the most important thing was to arrive at the ground with the right attitude. This couldn't guarantee success on any given day, but arriving with the wrong attitude guaranteed failure.
From there, my intent and my pre- and post-shot routines helped keep me on track. If my sole focus was survival, my feet wouldn't move effectively. Scoring runs became harder because I didn't watch the ball closely enough; I missed cues and was late to the hitting area.
When I think about the low periods of my batting career, I realise they were mostly a failure of the mind rather than the body.
Almost every elite batter who has played at the highest level for an extended period goes through what I call Elite Players Decline Syndrome (EPDS).
Sachin Tendulkar asked me years ago why batting gets harder as you get older. Surely it must get easier! As I explained to Sachin, it gets harder because you know how difficult it is to make runs against quality bowling attacks, and you get more conservative as you age. The only way I know to overcome EPDS is to recreate the thought processes of your younger self. That is easier said than done.
Watching Marnus recently, I suspect he too is suffering from EPDS. When I hear him talk about having to work harder, I doubt he will turn his form around anytime soon.
Hard work and will power are self-defeating. They put a lid on how many runs you are likely to make. His struggle to get past 40 in recent Tests is a testament to this. Under these circumstances, making 40 takes more effort than a century once did, and mental errors usually bring about your downfall.
I remember watching Marnus in his pomp and seeing his feet move quickly, like John Travolta's on the dance floor. He was obviously watching the ball closely out of the bowler's hand, picking up clues from the bowler's body language, and pouncing on deliveries like a seagull on food scraps.
If you look at footage of those times, you will notice that his stance looked very athletic, with his weight solely on the balls of his feet. His footwork was decisive, and he got to the pitch of the ball in a flash. He could attack nearly every delivery. Timing and placement were his hallmark.
To watch him now, he is crab-like at the crease and rarely makes contact with the ball in front of the popping crease. Where he once got to the ball a metre in front of the crease with a full, flowing bat, he is now prodding around, searching for the ball with his hands.
Marnus is often late to the hitting area, which suggests to me that his head is running rampant with negative thoughts that prevent him from truly seeing the ball out of the hand. Where he was once cat-like in his movements, he is now flat-footed, as though he doesn't pick up the ball until it is halfway down the pitch.
Flat feet don't let you access the ground-reaction forces that help you move forward or back. He now has very few balls he can attack, which feeds his frustration.
The selectors have kept faith with Marnus through the Bangladesh and South Africa series. A break from Test cricket now looks unavoidable, and what matters is how he uses it. Performance anxiety has taken over his whole being, and he won't fix the problem in the middle of a contest.
In his heyday Marnus trusted his subconscious mind to make his decisions. All he had to do was give the conscious mind what it was designed for: seeing the ball out of the hand and intending to score. Now I believe he has lost confidence in the subconscious doing the job, so he lets the conscious mind take over every action, like a control-freak manager.
The conscious mind can't run the program as efficiently and it botches the task.
Marnus needs a circuit breaker, and Sheffield Shield cricket alone won't provide one. A few days by the sea to clear his head and only then a return to first-class cricket. If he goes straight back into action, I fear the cycle will continue.
If he is looking for something to do after a swim, it is to watch the video of his 215 against New Zealand at the SCG in January 2020. It highlights his athletic stance and his positive attitude and intent. If he can recapture that mindset, he will go a long way toward turning his form around.
As we saw in Potchefstroom at the start of the South African tour, he can still make runs at that level, but the demands of Test cricket seem to trigger mental confusion. Tendulkar reproduced his younger attitude and continued playing successfully at the top level for many more years. If Marnus can find his younger mind, there is no reason why he can't return to his best.
Technique matters, and heavy run-scoring will help. But as the ancients knew, the clarity of the mind ultimately decides whether a player finds his feet again.