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Labuschagne evenly coats butter on the top and bottom of a slice of white bread. “That’s the secret,” he explains as he lowers the lid of his grilled cheese press. “There you go. Then you get it golden on the outside.” He checks inside to reveal a golden square of ideal crispiness, the bubbling cheese happily bubbling away. “And that’s the trick of the trade,” he explains. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

By now, it’s clear a sense of disinterest is beginning to form across 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 eagerly promoted for an return to the Test side before the England-Australia contest.

You probably want to read more about that. 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 additional unnecessary part of self-referential analysis in the second person. You sigh again.

He turns the sandwich on to a dish and heads over the fridge. “Not many people do this,” he announces, “but I actually like the cold toastie. Boom, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, go bat, come back. Perfect. Sandwich is perfect.”

On-Field Matters

Okay, to cut to the chase. Shall we get the cricket bit out of the way first? Small reward for your patience. And while there may only be six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s hundred against Tasmania – his third of the summer in all cricket – feels quietly decisive.

This is an Australia top three clearly missing performance and method, shown up by the South African team in the WTC final, shown up once more in the Caribbean afterwards. 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 looks to have given them the right opportunity.

Here is a strategy Australia must implement. Usman Khawaja has just one 100 in his past 44 innings. Konstas looks not quite a first-innings batsman and more like the good-looking star who might play a Test opener in a Bollywood epic. None of the alternatives has made a cogent case. One contender looks finished. Another option is still surprisingly included, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their captain, Pat Cummins, is injured and suddenly this seems like a weirdly lightweight side, missing strength or equilibrium, the kind of built-in belief that has often helped Australia dominate before a match begins.

The Batsman’s Revival

Step forward Marnus: a top-ranked Test batsman as in the recent past, recently omitted from the ODI side, the right person to return structure to a brittle empire. And we are advised this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne now: a streamlined, no-frills Labuschagne, less extremely focused with small details. “I believe I have really simplified things,” he said after his ton. “Not overthinking, just what I should make runs.”

Clearly, few accept this. Probably this is a fresh image that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s mind: still endlessly adjusting that technique from all day, going more back to basics than anyone has ever dared. Like basic approach? Marnus will devote weeks in the practice sessions with advisors and replays, exhaustively remoulding himself into the simplest player that has ever been seen. That’s the nature of the addict, and the characteristic that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging sportsmen in the sport.

Wider Context

Perhaps before this very open historic rivalry, there is even a kind of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. On England’s side we have a side for whom technical study, not to mention self-review, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Go with instinct. Be where the ball is. Smell the now.

In the other corner you have a player such as Labuschagne, a man completely dedicated with cricket and totally indifferent by who knows about it, who sees cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who handles this unusual pursuit with just the right measure of quirky respect it demands.

And it worked. During his focused era – from the time he walked out to replace a concussed the senior batsman at the famous ground in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne somehow managed to see the game on another level. To reach it – through pure determination – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his stint in club cricket, colleagues noticed him on the morning of a game sitting on a park bench in a trance-like state, literally visualising all balls of his time at the crease. Per the analytics firm, during the initial period of his career a unusually large number of chances were dropped off his bat. Remarkably Labuschagne had anticipated outcomes before others could react to change it.

Form Issues

It’s possible this was why his form started to decline the time he achieved top ranking. There were no worlds left to visualise, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Furthermore – he lost faith in his favorite stroke, got trapped on the crease and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his trainer, D’Costa, believes a focus on white-ball cricket started to undermine belief in his alignment. Encouragingly: he’s now excluded from the ODI side.

Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a devoutly religious individual, an religious believer who believes that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his task 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 consistently been the key distinction between him and the other batsman, a inherently talented player