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Marnus methodically applies butter on both sides of a slice of plain bread. “That’s essential,” he explains as he lowers the lid of his grilled cheese press. “Boom. Then you get it crisp on each side.” He opens the grill to reveal a perfectly browned of delicious perfection, the bubbling cheese happily melting inside. “Here’s the trick of the trade,” he announces. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

By now, it’s clear a layer of boredom is beginning to appear in your eyes. The alarm bells of overly fancy prose are going off. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne made 160 runs for Queensland this week and is being eagerly promoted for an national team comeback before the Ashes.

You likely wish to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to endure several lines of wobbling whimsy about toasted sandwiches, plus an additional unnecessary part of self-referential analysis in the “you” perspective. You feel resigned.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a dish and heads over the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he remarks, “but I personally prefer the grilled sandwich chilled. Boom, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, go bat, come back. Perfect. Sandwich is perfect.”

The Cricket Context

Alright, let’s try it like this. Shall we get the match details to begin with? Small reward for making it this far. And while there may be just six weeks until the series opener, Labuschagne’s hundred against Tasmania – his third of the summer in all formats – feels significantly impactful.

Here’s an Aussie opening batsmen clearly missing performance and method, revealed against the South African team in the WTC final, highlighted further in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was dropped during that trip, but on some level you sensed Australia were desperate to rehabilitate him at the first opportunity. Now he seems to have given them the perfect excuse.

Here is a plan that Australia need to work. Khawaja has just one 100 in his recent 44 batting efforts. The young batsman looks hardly a first-innings batsman and more like the good-looking star who might play a Test opener in a Indian film. None of the alternatives has made a cogent case. One contender looks finished. Marcus Harris is still inexplicably hanging around, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their captain, Pat Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this feels like a weirdly lightweight side, short of command or stability, the kind of natural confidence that has often helped Australia dominate before a match begins.

The Batsman’s Revival

Here comes Labuschagne: a leading Test player as in the recent past, just left out from the 50-over squad, the right person to return structure to a fragile lineup. And we are told this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne now: a simplified, fundamental-focused Labuschagne, less intensely fixated with small details. “I believe I have really stripped it back,” he said after his ton. “Not really too technical, just what I should make runs.”

Of course, this is doubted. Most likely this is a new approach that exists only in Labuschagne’s own head: still endlessly adjusting that method from dawn to dusk, going more back to basics than any player has attempted. You want less technical? Marnus will take time in the practice sessions with trainers and footage, exhaustively remoulding himself into the most basic batsman that has ever existed. This is just the quality of the focused, and the quality that has long made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging sportsmen in the game.

The Broader Picture

Perhaps before this highly uncertain Ashes series, there is even a sort of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s endless focus. In England we have a squad for whom any kind of analysis, let alone self-analysis, is a risky subject. Go with instinct. Be where the ball is. Smell the now.

On the opposite side you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a man completely dedicated with cricket and totally indifferent by others’ opinions, who finds cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who approaches this quirky game with precisely the amount of absurd reverence it requires.

His method paid off. During his shamanic phase – from the instant he appeared to come in for a hurt Steve Smith at the famous ground in 2019 to around the end of 2022 – Labuschagne somehow managed to see the game on another level. To tap into it – through absolute focus – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his time with English county cricket, fellow players saw him on the day of a match resting on a bench in a focused mindset, mentally rehearsing each delivery of his innings. Per the analytics firm, during the initial period of his career a unusually large catches were spilled from his batting. Somehow Labuschagne had predicted events before others could react to influence it.

Recent Challenges

It’s possible this was why his performance dipped the moment he reached the summit. There were no new heights to imagine, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he stopped trusting his signature shot, got trapped on the 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 undermine belief in his positioning. Positive development: he’s just been dropped from the ODI side.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an religious believer who holds that this is all preordained, who thus sees his role as one of accessing this state of flow, despite being puzzling it may look to the ordinary people.

This approach, to my mind, has long been the main point of difference between him and Smith, a inherently talented player