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Marnus evenly coats butter on each surface of a slice of plain bread. “That’s the key,” he explains as he brings down the lid of his toastie maker. “There you go. Then you get it golden on the outside.” He checks inside to reveal a perfectly browned of pure toasted goodness, the gooey cheese happily melting inside. “And that’s the key technique,” he explains. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

Already, it’s clear a layer of boredom is beginning to cover your eyes. The warning signs of overly fancy prose are flashing wildly. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne hit 160 for Queensland this week and is being feverishly talked up for an Australian Test recall before the Ashes.

You likely wish to read more about that. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to sit through a section of light-hearted musing about grilled cheese, plus an additional unnecessary part of tiresome meta‑deconstruction in the “you” perspective. You groan once more.

He turns the sandwich on to a plate and walks across the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he announces, “but I actually like the grilled sandwich chilled. Done, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, head to practice, come back. Perfect. Sandwich is perfect.”

Back to Cricket

Alright, to cut to the chase. How about we cover the match details initially? Quick update for reading until now. And while there may only be six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s century against the Tasmanian side – his third of the summer in various games – feels significantly impactful.

This is an Aussie opening batsmen seriously lacking consistency and technique, revealed against the Proteas in the Test championship decider, shown up once more in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was left out during that tour, but on some level you sensed Australia were keen to restore him at the earliest chance. Now he seems to have given them the ideal reason.

Here is a strategy Australia must implement. Usman Khawaja has just one 100 in his last 44 knocks. The young batsman looks less like a Test opener and rather like the attractive performer who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood epic. No other options has presented a strong argument. Nathan McSweeney looks cooked. Marcus Harris is still inexplicably hanging around, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their captain, Cummins, is hurt and suddenly this appears as a surprisingly weak team, lacking command or stability, the kind of natural confidence that has often given Australia a lead before a game starts.

Marnus’s Comeback

Here comes Labuschagne: a world No 1 Test batter as just two years ago, freshly dropped from the one-day team, the ideal candidate to return structure to a fragile lineup. And we are advised this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne currently: a simplified, back-to-basics Labuschagne, not as extremely focused with small details. “I feel like I’ve really stripped it back,” he said after his ton. “Not overthinking, just what I must score runs.”

Clearly, few accept this. In all likelihood this is a new approach that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s personal view: still endlessly adjusting that method from dawn to dusk, going further toward simplicity than anyone else would try. You want less technical? Marnus will spend months in the training with trainers and footage, thoroughly reshaping his game into the simplest player that has ever been seen. This is just the trait of the obsessed, and the quality that has long made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing players in the cricket.

Bigger Scene

Maybe before this inscrutably unpredictable England-Australia contest, there is even a sort of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s endless focus. For England we have a side for whom technical study, let alone self-analysis, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Trust your gut. Focus on the present. Embrace the current.

For Australia you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a individual completely dedicated with the game and wonderfully unconcerned by who knows about it, who sees cricket even in the gaps in the game, who handles this unusual pursuit with exactly the level of absurd reverence it deserves.

And it worked. During his intense period – from the moment he strode out to substitute for an injured Smith at Lord’s Cricket Ground 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 stint in English county cricket, colleagues noticed him on the game day resting on a bench in a meditative condition, mentally rehearsing every single ball of his batting stint. According to Cricviz, during the early stages of his career a statistically unfathomable proportion of catches were dropped off his bat. Somehow Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before fielders could respond to affect it.

Form Issues

It’s possible this was why his performance dipped the point he became number one. There were no further goals to picture, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he stopped trusting his favorite stroke, got stuck in his crease and seemed to misjudge his positioning. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his mentor, D’Costa, thinks a focus on white-ball cricket started to erode confidence in his alignment. Encouragingly: he’s recently omitted from the one-day team.

Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a strongly faithful person, an committed Christian who thinks that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his role as one of achieving this peak performance, no matter how mysterious it may seem to the ordinary people.

This, to my mind, has always been the key distinction between him and the other batsman, a more naturally gifted player