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Labuschagne evenly coats butter on each surface of a slice of plain bread. “That’s the secret,” he explains as he brings down the lid of his sandwich grill. “Boom. Then you get it crisp on each side.” He opens the grill to reveal a perfectly browned of ideal crispiness, the gooey cheese happily sizzling within. “So this is the secret method,” he announces. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

Already, I sense a layer of boredom is beginning to appear in your eyes. The red lights of sportswriting pretension 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 his performance. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to get through a section of light-hearted musing about toasted sandwiches, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of self-referential analysis in the “you” perspective. You groan once more.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a plate and walks across the fridge. “Not many people do this,” he states, “but I actually like the toastie cold. There, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, go bat, come back. Boom. Sandwich is perfect.”

Back to Cricket

Okay, let’s try it like this. Shall we get the match details initially? Little treat for your patience. And while there may only be six weeks until the series opener, Labuschagne’s century against the Tigers – his third this season in all cricket – feels significantly impactful.

We have an Aussie opening batsmen badly short of performance and method, shown up by South Africa in the WTC final, shown up once more in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was left out during that series, but on some level you sensed Australia were keen to restore him at the soonest moment. Now he seems to have given them the ideal reason.

This represents a approach the team should follow. Usman Khawaja has just one 100 in his recent 44 batting efforts. Konstas looks not quite a first-innings batsman and more like the good-looking star who might act as a batsman in a Indian film. None of the alternatives has presented a strong argument. One contender looks finished. Marcus Harris is still oddly present, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their leader, Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this feels like a surprisingly weak team, lacking strength or equilibrium, the kind of built-in belief that has often helped Australia dominate before a game starts.

Marnus’s Comeback

Step forward Marnus: a top-ranked Test batsman as in the recent past, recently omitted from the ODI side, the perfect character to restore order to a shaky team. And we are advised this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne now: a simplified, no-frills Labuschagne, less maniacally obsessed with technical minutiae. “I feel like I’ve really simplified things,” he said after his hundred. “Not really too technical, just what I must score runs.”

Naturally, few accept this. In all likelihood this is a fresh image that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s personal view: still furiously stripping down that technique from morning to night, going more back to basics than anyone else would try. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will spend months in the training with advisors and replays, exhaustively remoulding himself into the least technical batter that has ever existed. That’s the quality of the focused, and the trait that has always made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating cricketers in the game.

Wider Context

Maybe before this inscrutably unpredictable England-Australia contest, there is even a sort of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. In England we have a team for whom detailed examination, let alone self-analysis, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Go with instinct. Be where the ball is. Smell the now.

In the other corner you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a individual terminally obsessed with the game and totally indifferent by others’ opinions, who sees cricket even in the gaps in the game, who approaches this quirky game with precisely the amount of odd devotion it deserves.

This approach succeeded. During his shamanic phase – from the instant he appeared to replace a concussed Steve Smith at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 2019 to around the end of 2022 – Labuschagne somehow managed to see the game on another level. To access it – through sheer intensity of will – on a higher, weirder, more frenzied level. During his time with Kent league cricket, teammates would find him on the day of a match positioned on a seat in a trance-like state, actually imagining each delivery of his batting stint. According to Cricviz, during the initial period of his career a statistically unfathomable proportion of catches were dropped off his bat. Somehow Labuschagne had predicted events before fielders could respond to change it.

Recent Challenges

Maybe this was why his form started to decline the moment he reached the summit. There were no new heights to imagine, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Additionally – he lost faith in his signature shot, got stuck in his crease and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his coach, D’Costa, reckons a emphasis on limited-overs started to undermine belief in his alignment. Positive development: he’s now excluded from the ODI side.

Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an religious believer who thinks that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his job as one of accessing this state of flow, no matter how mysterious it may look to the mortal of us.

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