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Labuschagne methodically applies butter on the top and bottom of a slice of white bread. “That’s the key,” he states as he closes the lid of his toastie maker. “Perfect. Then you get it crisp on the outside.” He opens the grill to reveal a toasted delight of ideal crispiness, the gooey cheese happily melting inside. “So this is the key technique,” he announces. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

By now, it’s clear a glaze of ennui is beginning to form across your eyes. The red lights of sportswriting pretension are going off. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne hit 160 for his state team this week and is being eagerly promoted for an national team comeback before the Ashes.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about his performance. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to get through several lines of playful digression about grilled cheese, plus an additional unnecessary part of overly analytical commentary in the “you” perspective. You sigh again.

He turns the sandwich on to a serving plate and heads over the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he announces, “but I genuinely enjoy the toastie cold. Done, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, go bat, come back. Perfect. Sandwich is perfect.”

Back to Cricket

Okay, here’s the main point. Let’s address the sports aspect to begin with? Small reward for your patience. And while there may be just six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s hundred against the Tigers – his third this season in all formats – feels quietly decisive.

Here’s an Australia top three badly short of performance and method, revealed against the Proteas in the World Test Championship final, exposed again in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was left out during that series, but on one hand you sensed Australia were keen to restore him at the soonest moment. Now he seems to have given them the ideal reason.

And this is a plan that Australia need to work. Khawaja has just one 100 in his last 44 knocks. Sam Konstas looks hardly a Test match opener and closer to the good-looking star who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood epic. Other candidates has presented a strong argument. McSweeney looks finished. Another option is still oddly present, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their captain, Pat Cummins, is hurt and suddenly this appears as 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

Step forward Marnus: a world No 1 Test batter as recently as 2023, freshly dropped from the 50-over squad, the perfect character to bring stability to a shaky team. And we are informed this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne currently: a streamlined, back-to-basics Labuschagne, no longer as intensely fixated with small details. “I feel like I’ve really simplified things,” he said after his hundred. “Not overthinking, just what I must bat effectively.”

Clearly, this is doubted. Probably this is a fresh image that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s own head: still constantly refining that technique from all day, going further toward simplicity than anyone has ever dared. You want less technical? Marnus will spend months in the practice sessions with coaches and video clips, thoroughly reshaping his game into the most basic batsman that has ever existed. This is simply the nature of the addict, and the trait that has always made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating players in the sport.

Bigger Scene

Maybe before this inscrutably unpredictable historic rivalry, there is even a sort of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s endless focus. For England we have a squad for whom detailed examination, not to mention self-review, is a forbidden topic. Trust your gut. Focus on the present. Live in the instant.

For Australia you have a player such as Labuschagne, a individual utterly absorbed with cricket and magnificently unbothered by public perception, who observes cricket even in the moments outside play, who approaches this quirky game with exactly the level of absurd reverence it demands.

His method paid off. During his focused era – from the instant he appeared to come in for a hurt Steve Smith at Lord’s in 2019 to until late 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game on another level. To reach it – through absolute focus – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his time with Kent league cricket, teammates would find him on the morning of a game sitting on a park bench in a trance-like state, actually imagining every single ball of his time at the crease. According to Cricviz, during the early stages of his career a unusually large number of chances were missed when he batted. Somehow Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before others could react to influence it.

Form Issues

It’s possible this was why his form started to decline the moment he reached the summit. There were no worlds left to visualise, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Furthermore – he lost faith in his cover drive, got trapped on the crease and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his coach, Neil D’Costa, thinks a attention to shorter formats started to erode confidence in his positioning. Positive development: he’s now excluded from the 50-over squad.

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 role as one of accessing this state of flow, no matter how mysterious it may look to the rest of us.

This approach, to my mind, has always been the key distinction between him and the other batsman, a inherently talented player