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Labuschagne carefully spreads butter on the top and bottom of a slice of white bread. “That’s the key,” he tells the camera as he brings down the lid of his toastie maker. “There you go. Then you get it crisp on the outside.” He opens the grill to reveal a golden square of ideal crispiness, the gooey cheese happily sizzling within. “So this is the trick of the trade,” he declares. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

By now, it’s clear a sense of disinterest is beginning to form across your eyes. The warning signs of sportswriting pretension are flashing wildly. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne scored 160 for his state team this week and is being eagerly promoted for an return to the Test side before the England-Australia contest.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about that. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to get through a section of light-hearted musing about grilled cheese, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of self-referential analysis in the “you” perspective. You sigh again.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a plate and moves toward the fridge. “Few try this,” he states, “but I actually like the toastie cold. There, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, go for a hit, come back. Boom. Sandwich is perfect.”

The Cricket Context

Okay, to cut to the chase. Let’s address the cricket bit to begin with? Little treat for your patience. And while there may still be six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s century against the Tasmanian side – his third this season in all cricket – feels quietly decisive.

We have an Aussie opening batsmen badly short of consistency and technique, revealed against the Proteas in the World Test Championship final, exposed again in the Caribbean afterwards. Labuschagne was omitted during that series, but on one hand you felt Australia were desperate to rehabilitate him at the soonest moment. Now he appears to have given them the right opportunity.

And this is a plan that Australia need to work. The opener has just one 100 in his past 44 innings. Sam Konstas looks less like a Test match opener and rather like the good-looking star who might play a Test opener in a Bollywood movie. Other candidates has shown convincing form. Nathan McSweeney looks out of form. Harris is still surprisingly included, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their captain, Cummins, is injured and suddenly this seems like a weirdly lightweight side, short of authority or balance, the kind of built-in belief that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a match begins.

Marnus’s Comeback

Here comes Labuschagne: a top-ranked Test batsman as just two years ago, just left out from the ODI side, the ideal candidate to return structure to a fragile lineup. And we are told this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne now: a pared-down, back-to-basics Labuschagne, no longer as maniacally obsessed with technical minutiae. “I feel like I’ve really cut out extras,” he said after his hundred. “Less focused on technique, just what I need to make runs.”

Of course, nobody truly believes this. In all likelihood this is a rebrand that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s personal view: still endlessly adjusting that technique from morning to night, going further toward simplicity than any player has attempted. Like basic approach? Marnus will take time in the training with advisors and replays, thoroughly reshaping his game into the most basic batsman that has ever played. This is simply the trait of the obsessed, and the trait that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing sportsmen in the cricket.

Wider Context

Perhaps before this very open Ashes series, there is even a kind of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s constant dedication. For England we have a side for whom any kind of analysis, not to mention self-review, is a forbidden topic. Trust your gut. Be where the ball is. Smell the now.

For Australia you have a player such as Labuschagne, a player utterly absorbed with the sport and wonderfully unconcerned by others’ opinions, who finds cricket even in the gaps in the game, who handles this unusual pursuit with just the right measure of absurd reverence it demands.

His method paid off. During his focused era – from the instant he appeared to come in for a hurt the senior batsman at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 2019 to until late 2022 – Labuschagne somehow managed to see the game on another level. To access it – through absolute focus – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his stint in Kent league cricket, colleagues noticed him on the morning of a game sitting on a park bench in a trance-like state, 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 anticipated outcomes before fielders could respond to influence it.

Current Struggles

It’s possible this was why his form started to decline the time he achieved top ranking. There were no worlds left to visualise, just a empty space before his eyes. Furthermore – he began doubting his favorite stroke, got stuck in his crease and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his mentor, Neil D’Costa, believes a attention to shorter formats started to undermine belief in his positioning. Good news: he’s recently omitted from the ODI side.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an committed Christian who holds that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his task as one of reaching this optimal zone, despite being puzzling it may seem to the rest of us.

This, to my mind, has consistently been the main point of difference between him and Smith, a more naturally gifted player