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Marnus evenly coats butter on each surface of a slice of white bread. “That’s the secret,” he states as he closes the lid of his grilled cheese press. “Boom. Then you get it golden on each side.” He lifts the lid to reveal a golden square of ideal crispiness, the melted cheese happily bubbling away. “So this is the secret method,” he declares. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

At this stage, you may feel a glaze of ennui is beginning to appear in your eyes. The alarm bells of sportswriting pretension are blinking intensely. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne scored 160 for his state team this week and is being feverishly talked up for an Australian Test recall before the Ashes series.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about that. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to endure several lines of wobbling whimsy about toasties, plus an further tangential section of tiresome meta‑deconstruction in the direct address. You groan once more.

He turns the sandwich on to a plate and walks across the fridge. “Few try this,” he states, “but I actually like the toastie cold. Done, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, go bat, come back. Perfect. It’s ideal.”

Back to Cricket

Look, to cut to the chase. Let’s address the cricket bit out of the way first? Little treat for reading until now. And while there may still be six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s century against the Tigers – his third in recent months in all formats – feels importantly timed.

This is an Australia top three badly short of form and structure, shown up by South Africa in the World Test Championship final, shown up once more in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was left out during that trip, but on some level you gathered Australia were eager to bring him back at the first opportunity. Now he appears to have given them the right opportunity.

This represents a strategy Australia must implement. Usman Khawaja has just one 100 in his recent 44 batting efforts. Konstas looks hardly a first-innings batsman and rather like the attractive performer who might play a Test opener in a Indian film. Other candidates has made a cogent case. One contender looks out of form. Marcus Harris is still surprisingly included, like dust or mold. Meanwhile their captain, Cummins, is hurt and suddenly this feels like a surprisingly weak team, missing authority or balance, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often given Australia a lead before a match begins.

Marnus’s Comeback

Step forward Marnus: a top-ranked Test batsman as recently as 2023, just left out from the one-day team, the perfect character to restore order to a fragile lineup. And we are informed this is a composed and reflective Labuschagne now: a simplified, no-frills Labuschagne, less extremely focused with small details. “It seems I’ve really stripped it back,” he said after his ton. “Less focused on technique, just what I should bat effectively.”

Clearly, nobody truly believes this. In all likelihood this is a fresh image that exists only in Labuschagne’s own head: still endlessly adjusting that approach from morning to night, going deeper into fundamentals than anyone has ever dared. You want less technical? Marnus will devote weeks in the practice sessions with coaches and video clips, completely transforming into the most basic batsman that has ever played. That’s the nature of the addict, and the characteristic that has long made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing sportsmen in the cricket.

Bigger Scene

It could be before this inscrutably unpredictable England-Australia contest, there is even a type of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s constant dedication. On England’s side we have a team for whom any kind of analysis, not to mention self-review, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Feel the flavours. Be where the ball is. Embrace the current.

For Australia you have a player such as Labuschagne, a player utterly absorbed with the game and magnificently unbothered by others’ opinions, who observes cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who treats this absurd sport with exactly the level of odd devotion it requires.

This approach succeeded. During his shamanic phase – 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 more deeply. To access it – through absolute focus – on a higher, weirder, more frenzied level. During his days playing Kent league cricket, colleagues noticed him on the morning of a game sitting on a park bench in a focused mindset, actually imagining every single ball of his time at the crease. Per cricket statisticians, during the early stages of his career a surprisingly high proportion of catches were dropped off his bat. In some way Labuschagne had anticipated outcomes before fielders could respond to change it.

Recent Challenges

Maybe this was why his performance dipped the time he achieved top ranking. There were no further goals to picture, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he stopped trusting 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, his coach, thinks a focus on white-ball cricket started to undermine belief in his positioning. Good news: he’s now excluded from the 50-over squad.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a devoutly religious individual, an evangelical Christian who believes that this is all preordained, who thus sees his role as one of achieving this peak performance, despite being puzzling it may appear to the ordinary people.

This approach, to my mind, has long been the primary contrast between him and Smith, a instinctive player