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Labuschagne methodically applies butter on each surface of a slice of plain bread. “That’s the secret,” he tells the camera as he lowers the lid of his sandwich grill. “There you go. Then you get it golden on both sides.” He checks inside to reveal a perfectly browned of pure toasted goodness, the gooey cheese happily sizzling within. “And that’s the secret method,” he announces. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

Already, it’s clear a sense of disinterest is beginning to appear in your eyes. The red lights of sportswriting pretension are going off. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne made 160 runs for Queensland Bulls this week and is being eagerly promoted for an Australian Test recall before the Ashes series.

You likely wish to read more about his performance. But first – you now understand with frustration – you’re going to have to sit through a section of wobbling whimsy about toasted sandwiches, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of tiresome meta‑deconstruction in the second person. You sigh again.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a dish and walks across the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he remarks, “but I actually like the grilled sandwich chilled. Boom, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, head to practice, come back. Alright. Sandwich is perfect.”

Back to Cricket

Okay, let’s try it like this. Shall we get the cricket bit to begin with? Little treat for reading until now. And while there may still be six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against the Tasmanian side – his third this season in all cricket – feels quietly decisive.

Here’s an Australia top three clearly missing consistency and technique, shown up by the South African team in the Test championship decider, exposed again in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was dropped during that trip, but on one hand you sensed Australia were keen to restore him at the earliest chance. Now he looks to have given them the ideal reason.

Here is a plan that Australia need to work. Usman Khawaja has one century in his recent 44 batting efforts. Sam Konstas looks hardly a Test opener and more like the handsome actor who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood movie. No other options has presented a strong argument. McSweeney looks out of form. Marcus Harris is still surprisingly included, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their leader, Pat Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this appears as a weirdly lightweight side, lacking command or stability, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a match begins.

Marnus’s Comeback

Here comes Labuschagne: a top-ranked Test batsman as just two years ago, recently omitted from the one-day team, the ideal candidate to return structure to a shaky team. And we are told this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne now: a pared-down, no-frills Labuschagne, less maniacally obsessed with small details. “It seems I’ve really stripped it back,” he said after his ton. “Less focused on technique, just what I need to score runs.”

Clearly, nobody truly believes this. Most likely this is a new approach that exists just in Labuschagne’s personal view: still furiously stripping down that technique from dawn to dusk, going more back to basics than anyone else would try. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will devote weeks in the nets with coaches and video clips, exhaustively remoulding himself into the simplest player that has ever existed. This is just the quality of the focused, and the quality that has always made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing cricketers in the sport.

Wider Context

It could be before this highly uncertain Ashes series, there is even a sort of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s constant dedication. On England’s side we have a side for whom detailed examination, especially personal critique, is a forbidden topic. Trust your gut. Stay in the moment. Smell the now.

On the opposite side you have a player such as Labuschagne, a man utterly absorbed with the game and totally indifferent by public perception, who sees cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who approaches this quirky game with just the right measure of odd devotion it requires.

His method paid off. During his focused era – from the time he walked out to come in for a hurt the senior batsman at Lord’s in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne somehow managed to see the game on another level. To access it – through pure determination – on a higher, weirder, more frenzied level. During his stint in club cricket, colleagues noticed him on the day of a match sitting on a park bench in a focused mindset, literally visualising each delivery of his batting stint. As per cricket statisticians, during the initial period of his career a statistically unfathomable number of chances were spilled from his batting. In some way Labuschagne had predicted events before fielders could respond to affect it.

Recent Challenges

It’s possible this was why his form started to decline the point he became number one. There were no further goals to picture, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he lost faith in his cover drive, got trapped on the crease and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his coach, his coach, reckons a emphasis on limited-overs started to weaken assurance in his alignment. Good news: he’s now excluded from the 50-over squad.

Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an evangelical Christian who holds that this is all preordained, who thus sees his job as one of accessing this state of flow, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may seem to the ordinary people.

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