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Labuschagne carefully spreads butter on both sides of a slice of plain bread. “That’s the secret,” he explains as he brings down the lid of his grilled cheese press. “Boom. Then you get it toasted on each side.” He opens the grill to reveal a toasted delight of ideal crispiness, the gooey cheese happily melting inside. “So this is the key technique,” he explains. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

At this stage, I sense a sense of disinterest is beginning to cover your eyes. The warning signs of elaborate writing are blinking intensely. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne hit 160 for his state team this week and is being eagerly promoted for an national team comeback before the Ashes.

You likely wish to read more about his performance. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to endure several lines of playful digression about toasties, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of tiresome meta‑deconstruction in the direct address. You sigh again.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a dish and walks across the fridge. “Few try this,” he announces, “but I personally prefer the cold toastie. There, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, head to practice, come back. Alright. Toastie’s ready to go.”

Back to Cricket

Look, let’s try it like this. Let’s address the cricket bit initially? Small reward for making it this far. And while there may only be six weeks until the series opener, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against Tasmania – his third this season in all cricket – feels importantly timed.

We have an Aussie opening batsmen clearly missing consistency and technique, revealed against South Africa in the World Test Championship final, exposed again in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was omitted during that series, but on some level you felt Australia were desperate to rehabilitate him at the first opportunity. Now he appears to have given them the perfect excuse.

And this is a approach the team should follow. The opener has just one 100 in his last 44 knocks. Sam Konstas looks less like a first-innings batsman and more like the good-looking star who might portray a cricketer in a Bollywood epic. Other candidates has presented a strong argument. McSweeney looks out of form. Marcus Harris is still oddly present, like dust or mold. Meanwhile their leader, Cummins, is injured and suddenly this seems like a unusually thin squad, short of command or stability, the kind of natural confidence that has often given Australia a lead before a game starts.

Marnus’s Comeback

Step forward Marnus: a top-ranked Test batsman as in the recent past, recently omitted from the one-day team, the ideal candidate to restore order to a fragile lineup. And we are told this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne now: a simplified, fundamental-focused Labuschagne, no longer as maniacally obsessed with minor adjustments. “I feel like I’ve really simplified things,” he said after his century. “Not really too technical, just what I should make runs.”

Of course, nobody truly believes this. In all likelihood this is a fresh image that exists just in Labuschagne’s own head: still endlessly adjusting that technique from dawn to dusk, going more back to basics than anyone else would try. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will devote weeks in the practice sessions with coaches and video clips, exhaustively remoulding himself into the least technical batter that has ever been seen. This is simply the trait of the obsessed, and the trait that has long made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging players in the game.

Bigger Scene

Perhaps before this very open England-Australia contest, there is even a sort of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s endless focus. On England’s side we have a team for whom any kind of analysis, let alone self-analysis, is a risky subject. Trust your gut. Stay in the moment. Smell the now.

For Australia you have a individual like Labuschagne, a man completely dedicated with the game and totally indifferent by others’ opinions, who sees cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who treats this absurd sport with exactly the level of quirky respect it deserves.

This approach succeeded. During his shamanic phase – from the moment he strode out to come in for a hurt Smith at Lord’s in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game more deeply. To reach it – through sheer intensity of will – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his time with Kent league cricket, teammates would find him on the morning of a game positioned on a seat in a focused mindset, mentally rehearsing every single ball of his innings. As per cricket statisticians, during the initial period of his career a surprisingly high proportion of catches were dropped off his bat. Remarkably Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before anyone had a chance to affect it.

Form Issues

Perhaps this was why his career began to disintegrate the moment he reached the summit. There were no new heights to imagine, just a empty space before his eyes. Furthermore – he began doubting his favorite stroke, got trapped on the crease and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his trainer, D’Costa, reckons a focus on white-ball cricket started to undermine belief in his positioning. Positive development: he’s recently omitted from the one-day team.

Certainly it’s relevant, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an religious believer who thinks that this is all predetermined, who thus sees his job as one of accessing this state of flow, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may seem to the rest of us.

This mindset, to my mind, has consistently been the primary contrast between him and the other batsman, a instinctive player