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The Australian batsman methodically applies butter on each surface of a slice of plain bread. “That’s the key,” he explains as he closes the lid of his toastie maker. “Perfect. Then you get it toasted on the outside.” He opens the grill to reveal a toasted delight of ideal crispiness, the gooey cheese happily bubbling away. “And that’s the key technique,” he declares. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

By now, you may feel a glaze of ennui is beginning to appear in your eyes. The alarm bells of overly fancy prose are flashing wildly. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne hit 160 for his state team this week and is being feverishly talked up for an Australian Test recall before the Ashes.

You probably want to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to sit through a section of playful digression about grilled cheese, plus an further tangential section of self-referential analysis in the “you” perspective. You sigh again.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a plate and walks across the fridge. “Not many people do this,” he announces, “but I actually like the toastie cold. Boom, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, head to practice, come back. Boom. Toastie’s ready to go.”

The Cricket Context

Alright, to cut to the chase. How about we cover the cricket bit initially? Small reward for reading until now. And while there may be just six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s century against the Tasmanian side – his third in recent months in all cricket – feels quietly decisive.

We have an Australian top order clearly missing consistency and technique, shown up by the Proteas in the World Test Championship final, shown up once more in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was omitted during that series, but on some level you felt Australia were keen to restore him at the earliest chance. Now he appears to have given them the ideal reason.

And this is a approach the team should follow. Usman Khawaja has a single hundred in his recent 44 batting efforts. Konstas looks not quite a Test match opener and rather like the attractive performer who might portray a cricketer in a Bollywood movie. No other options has presented a strong argument. McSweeney looks out of form. Harris is still oddly present, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their captain, Pat Cummins, is injured and suddenly this feels like a unusually thin squad, missing command or stability, the kind of natural confidence that has often helped Australia dominate before a game starts.

Marnus’s Comeback

Step forward Marnus: a world No 1 Test batter as in the recent past, recently omitted from the 50-over squad, the right person to return structure to a fragile lineup. And we are advised this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne now: a streamlined, fundamental-focused Labuschagne, less intensely fixated with technical minutiae. “It seems I’ve really cut out extras,” he said after his hundred. “Less focused on technique, just what I should make runs.”

Naturally, few accept this. In all likelihood this is a rebrand that exists just in Labuschagne’s own head: still furiously stripping down that method from dawn to dusk, going further toward simplicity than any player has attempted. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will spend months in the training with trainers and footage, thoroughly reshaping his game into the most basic batsman that has ever existed. This is just the quality of the focused, and the quality that has always made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing sportsmen in the game.

Bigger Scene

Perhaps before this highly uncertain England-Australia contest, there is even a kind of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s endless focus. In England we have a team for whom technical study, let alone self-analysis, is a forbidden topic. Go with instinct. Focus on the present. Embrace the current.

On the opposite side you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a player utterly absorbed with cricket and totally indifferent by others’ opinions, who sees cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who treats this absurd sport with just the right measure of odd devotion it requires.

His method paid off. During his shamanic phase – from the time he walked out to substitute for an injured the senior batsman 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, fellow players saw him on the day of a match sitting on a park bench in a trance-like state, mentally rehearsing each delivery of his innings. According to cricket statisticians, during the first few years of his career a surprisingly high catches were dropped off his bat. In some way Labuschagne had predicted events before others could react to change it.

Recent Challenges

It’s possible this was why his form started to decline the moment he reached the summit. There were no new heights to imagine, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Additionally – he lost faith in his signature shot, got trapped on the crease and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his mentor, D’Costa, believes a emphasis on limited-overs started to weaken assurance in his alignment. Good news: he’s recently omitted from the 50-over squad.

Certainly it’s relevant, too, that Labuschagne is a strongly faithful person, an evangelical Christian who holds that this is all preordained, who thus sees his task as one of reaching this optimal zone, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may seem to the rest of us.

This approach, to my mind, has always been the main point of difference between him and Smith, a inherently talented player