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The Australian batsman methodically applies butter on the top and bottom of a slice of soft bread. “That’s essential,” he tells the camera as he lowers the lid of his grilled cheese press. “There you go. Then you get it toasted on each side.” He checks inside to reveal a toasted delight of pure toasted goodness, the bubbling cheese happily bubbling away. “Here’s the key technique,” he declares. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

At this stage, it’s clear a sense of disinterest is beginning to form across your eyes. The warning signs of sportswriting pretension are going off. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne hit 160 for Queensland Bulls this week and is being widely discussed for an national team comeback before the England-Australia contest.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about that. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to sit through three paragraphs of playful digression about toasted sandwiches, plus an further tangential section of overly analytical commentary in the “you” perspective. You sigh again.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a plate and heads over the fridge. “Not many people do this,” he states, “but I personally prefer the grilled sandwich chilled. Done, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, go bat, come back. Perfect. Toastie’s ready to go.”

On-Field Matters

Alright, let’s try it like this. Shall we get the match details to begin with? Little treat for making it this far. And while there may be just six weeks until the series opener, Labuschagne’s hundred against the Tigers – his third this season in all cricket – feels importantly timed.

Here’s an Australian top order seriously lacking consistency and technique, revealed against South Africa in the Test championship decider, exposed again 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 soonest moment. Now he seems to have given them the right opportunity.

And this is a approach the team should follow. Khawaja has a single hundred in his last 44 knocks. Sam Konstas looks less like a Test opener and more like the good-looking star who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood epic. No other options has made a cogent case. One contender looks finished. Marcus Harris is still surprisingly included, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their skipper, 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 given Australia a lead before a ball is bowled.

Labuschagne’s Return

Enter Marnus: a leading Test player as in the recent past, freshly dropped from the ODI side, the right person to return structure to a fragile lineup. And we are told this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne these days: a simplified, back-to-basics Labuschagne, less extremely focused with small details. “It seems I’ve really cut out extras,” he said after his century. “Not overthinking, just what I should bat effectively.”

Clearly, nobody truly believes this. Probably this is a fresh image that exists just in Labuschagne’s own head: still endlessly adjusting that method from morning to night, going more back to basics than anyone has ever dared. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will spend months in the practice sessions with trainers and footage, completely transforming into the most basic batsman that has ever played. This is simply the nature of the addict, and the quality that has always made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing players in the game.

Bigger Scene

Perhaps before this inscrutably unpredictable England-Australia contest, there is even a type of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. On England’s side we have a side for whom detailed examination, let alone self-analysis, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Trust your gut. Stay in the moment. Embrace the current.

For Australia you have a individual like Labuschagne, a player completely dedicated with cricket and magnificently unbothered by public perception, who sees cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who approaches this quirky game with exactly the level of quirky respect it demands.

His method paid off. During his focused era – from the moment he strode out to substitute for an injured Smith at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game more deeply. To tap into it – through absolute focus – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his stint in English county cricket, fellow players saw him on the game day resting on a bench in a meditative condition, literally visualising each delivery of his batting stint. As per the analytics firm, during the first few years of his career a unusually large catches were dropped off his bat. Remarkably Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before fielders could respond to affect it.

Recent Challenges

Perhaps this was why his career began to disintegrate the moment he reached the summit. There were no new heights to imagine, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he lost faith in his signature shot, got trapped on the crease and seemed to misjudge his positioning. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his trainer, D’Costa, reckons a attention to shorter formats started to erode confidence in his positioning. Encouragingly: he’s recently omitted from the one-day team.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a strongly faithful person, an evangelical Christian who believes that this is all preordained, who thus sees his role as one of accessing this state of flow, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may seem to the ordinary people.

This approach, to my mind, has consistently been the main point of difference between him and the other batsman, a more naturally gifted player