By his own admission, Marnus Labuschagne's journey to Test cricket and beyond has been – and continues to prove – "peculiar".
His first experience within the international game came in 2010 at his home venue, the Gabba, when he was just 16 - the same age as Pakistan's fast bowler Naseem Shah who is playing his maiden Test in the match upon which Labuschagne has now indelibly stamped his name.
But the South Africa-born Queenslander wasn't involved in that Ashes Test as a combatant, rather he was dragging the host broadcaster's 'hot spot' camera from position to position on the second-level of the venue's concourse.
When he did progress to the big time four years later, it was a substitute fielder at the very same ground, and where he earned a measure of celebrity for claiming a short-leg catch offered by India tailender Varun Aaron.
Then, a further four years hence and having won a Baggy Green Cap on Australia's Test tour to the UAE, Labuschagne was dismissed for a second-ball duck which meant he could boast a Test catch, a Test wicket, and a Test run-out (in the second innings of his debut match against Pakistan in Dubai) before he had scored a Test run.
"There was a time there in Dubai when I didn’t think I'd ever make a Test run," Labuschagne admitted on Saturday night, while basking in the glow of his maiden Test century, a first-class career-best knock of 185.
"The strange things just keep on piling up on each other."
So it's hardly surprising that Labuschagne's voyage to his first Test ton was typically atypical, and littered with moments that might cause less-grounded and more fallible folk to question their methods and fear the portents.
Having ended day two of the opening Domain Test unbeaten on 55, and acutely conscious of his previous Test-best innings of 81 (also at the Gabba, against Sri Lanka earlier this year), Labuschagne tried to erase the prospect of a boyhood dream from his churning mind.
"Last night I was laying in bed, and I wasn't trying to think about it too much to be honest," Labuschagne said.
"I was just trying to clear my mind, but I woke up around three o'clock and I just couldn't stop thinking about cricket.
"I was looking at my phone a bit and scrolled, which is never a good thing because people are messaging from England and that didn't help.
"But I got back to sleep, and this morning when I woke up … you think about it, but you don't think about it.
"It’s like you want to get a hundred, but you don't want to focus on it."
No matter the methods he tried, that all-pervasive prospect kept seeping into his thoughts.
Having stayed at home in Brisbane rather than at the team's Southbank hotel overnight, he consciously tried to prevent his mind drifting to images of a breakthrough Test century, how it might feel and even how he would celebrate when he attained the milestone.
That ploy proved only partly successful, and as the traffic flowed around him en route to the Gabba on Saturday, he would catch himself musing 'imagine if I get my first Test century, on my home ground'.
At the ground, as he engaged in his usual pre-match warm-up with his teammates and prepared to resume his innings in concert with David Warner – already the proud owner of a century in the game – Labuschagne's routine slightly changed.
Not from the boundary-side kneeling prayer that the devout Christian observes prior to each day, but rather the bizarre ritual of laying a bat with its handle on the perimeter rope and with its blade resting on the turf, as he stood and bounced up and down upon the rubber handle grip.
Even Steve Smith - the world's top-ranked batter who Labuschagne unashamedly mimics, and who is known as ultra-obsessive about his bat-related rituals - cast a disbelieving eye as the handle creaked and cracked beneath Labuschagne's feet.
But the Queenslander later explained it was not a new superstition, but a necessary step to loosen the newly fitted handle in his bat to ensure it wasn't stiff and lacking in 'spring' when needed in the middle.
"I'm always tinkering with stuff, and adjusting my game," Labuschagne confessed.
He's also perpetually learning, and the lessons he gleaned from recent one-day outings for Queensland was that if the fielders are set deep - as was the case as he and Warner and then Matthew Wade piled on runs – not to play "high-risk" cricket by hitting in the air.
Instead, he rehearsed the mantra instilled in him by his batting coach Neil D'Costa to simply "hit the ball to long-on and get to the other end", and used that to quell the anxiety and expectation that grew within him as he neared his century.
"Sometimes when you're going well, you try to play too many shots and today that's what I was trying not to do," he said.
"You really want to bring (your hundred) up, because you get a bit anxious.
"Leading up to when I got it, I was thinking 'just stay patient, they’re going to come, then you can get your shot'.
'But then I thought 'if it's full, I'm going to have a crack here … throw the bat'."
The moment that had seemed so unlikely when he was lugging the 'hot spot' camera around the Gabba's upper reaches nine years ago arrived – perhaps unsurprisingly – in circumstances nothing like Labuschagne had planned.
On 97, and with the urgings of his coach telling him to knock the ball along the turf to long-on and pocket a single, Labuschagne instead yielded to instinct and sent the ball to a diametrically opposite point.
But as it rolled into the rope at unpatrolled third-man, he uncorked the celebration he had been visualizing since he arrived with his family from South Africa aged 11 and first set his sights on representing his adopted nation at cricket.
Except that, in keeping with the earlier steps of his journey, that's not how it panned out at all.
"I was real greedy," Labuschagne said of the flashing drive and resulting edge that carried him to a hundred.
"I tried to go too square, and got a thick edge through the gully region, and then I was looking back to see it trickle along the ground and I was like 'oh thank you'.
"There were definitely times out there when I was like 'geez, just let me get there – just don't do anything silly'.
"Then, you always think as a kid how you're going to celebrate a hundred, and that celebration was nothing like I thought.
"My emotion took over, and it was very exciting - a dream come true."
https://www.cricket.com.au/news/mar...st-test-day-three-video-highlights/2019-11-23
