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Marnus evenly coats butter on each surface of a slice of white bread. “That’s the key,” he tells the camera as he lowers the lid of his grilled cheese press. “There you go. Then you get it golden on each side.” He lifts the lid to reveal a perfectly browned of pure toasted goodness, the bubbling cheese happily bubbling away. “Here’s the secret method,” he explains. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

At this stage, it’s clear a sense of disinterest is beginning to cover your eyes. The warning signs of elaborate writing are going off. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne scored 160 for Queensland Bulls this week and is being eagerly promoted for an return to the Test side before the Ashes series.

You likely wish to read more about that. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to get through three paragraphs of playful digression about toasted sandwiches, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of self-referential analysis in the direct address. You sigh again.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a dish and moves toward the fridge. “Not many people do this,” he remarks, “but I actually like the toastie cold. Boom, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, go bat, come back. Alright. Sandwich is perfect.”

On-Field Matters

Okay, here’s the main point. Shall we get the sports aspect to begin with? Little treat for reading until now. And while there may still be six weeks until the series opener, Labuschagne’s century against the Tasmanian side – his third in recent months in all cricket – feels significantly impactful.

Here’s an Australian top order badly short of consistency and technique, revealed against the South African team in the World Test Championship final, shown up once more in the Caribbean afterwards. Labuschagne was dropped during that tour, but on one hand you felt Australia were eager to bring him back at the earliest chance. Now he appears to have given them the ideal reason.

And this is a strategy Australia must implement. The opener has a single hundred in his past 44 innings. Sam Konstas looks not quite a first-innings batsman and rather like the good-looking star who might act as a batsman in a Indian film. No other options has presented a strong argument. One contender looks cooked. Another option is still inexplicably hanging around, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their captain, Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this appears as a weirdly lightweight side, lacking strength or equilibrium, the kind of built-in belief that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a match begins.

Labuschagne’s Return

Enter Marnus: a top-ranked Test batsman as in the recent past, freshly dropped from the one-day team, the perfect character to bring stability to a brittle empire. And we are told this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne these days: a pared-down, fundamental-focused Labuschagne, less maniacally obsessed with small details. “It seems I’ve really cut out extras,” he said after his hundred. “Not really too technical, just what I must make runs.”

Clearly, this is doubted. Most likely this is a new approach that exists only in Labuschagne’s own head: still endlessly adjusting that technique from morning to night, going deeper into fundamentals than anyone else would try. You want less technical? Marnus will devote weeks in the nets with trainers and footage, exhaustively remoulding himself into the simplest player that has ever been seen. That’s the nature of the addict, and the characteristic that has long made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging cricketers in the cricket.

Wider Context

Maybe before this highly uncertain historic rivalry, there is even a sort of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s endless focus. In England we have a squad for whom any kind of analysis, let alone self-analysis, is a forbidden topic. Trust your gut. Be where the ball is. Embrace the current.

In the other corner you have a player such as Labuschagne, a man utterly absorbed with cricket and wonderfully unconcerned by who knows about it, who finds cricket even in the moments outside play, who treats this absurd sport with just the right measure of quirky respect it deserves.

His method paid off. During his shamanic phase – from the instant he appeared to replace a concussed Smith at the famous ground in 2019 to until late 2022 – Labuschagne found a way to see the game with greater insight. To access it – through absolute focus – on a elevated, strange, passionate tier. During his stint in English county cricket, teammates would find him on the morning of a game positioned on a seat in a meditative condition, mentally rehearsing all balls of his batting stint. According to Cricviz, during the initial period of his career a unusually large proportion of catches were dropped off his bat. Somehow 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 point he became number one. There were no further goals to picture, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Additionally – he began doubting his cover drive, got trapped on the crease and seemed to misjudge his positioning. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his trainer, Neil D’Costa, thinks a emphasis on limited-overs started to undermine belief in his positioning. Good news: he’s recently omitted from the one-day team.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a devoutly religious individual, an religious believer who holds that this is all predetermined, who thus sees his job as one of achieving this peak performance, despite being puzzling it may seem to the ordinary people.

This, to my mind, has long been the key distinction between him and Steve Smith, a more naturally gifted player