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The Australian batsman evenly coats butter on each surface of a slice of white bread. “That’s the key,” he tells the camera as he brings down the lid of his sandwich grill. “There you go. Then you get it toasted on the outside.” He checks inside to reveal a perfectly browned of ideal crispiness, the bubbling cheese happily bubbling away. “So this is the trick of the trade,” he explains. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

Already, it’s clear a glaze of ennui is beginning to form across your eyes. The alarm bells of overly fancy prose are going off. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne made 160 runs for Queensland this week and is being feverishly talked up for an national team comeback before the Ashes series.

You probably want to read more about that. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to get through three paragraphs of playful digression about toasties, plus an further tangential section of overly analytical commentary in the “you” perspective. You groan once more.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a dish and moves toward the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he remarks, “but I actually like the toastie cold. Done, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, go for a hit, come back. Perfect. Toastie’s ready to go.”

On-Field Matters

Okay, let’s try it like this. Shall we get the sports aspect initially? Small reward for reading until now. And while there may only be six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against Tasmania – his third in recent months in all cricket – feels quietly decisive.

We have an Australian top order badly short of performance and method, exposed by South Africa in the World Test Championship final, exposed again in the Caribbean afterwards. Labuschagne was left out during that series, but on a certain level you felt Australia were keen to restore him at the soonest moment. Now he appears to have given them the perfect excuse.

Here is a plan that Australia need to work. The opener has one century in his past 44 innings. Konstas looks not quite a Test opener and rather like the attractive performer who might play a Test opener in a Bollywood movie. Other candidates has shown convincing form. McSweeney looks finished. Harris is still oddly present, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their leader, the pace bowler, is unfit and suddenly this appears as a surprisingly weak team, missing command or stability, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a match begins.

Labuschagne’s Return

Here comes Labuschagne: a top-ranked Test batsman as just two years ago, recently omitted from the ODI side, the ideal candidate to restore order to a brittle empire. And we are advised this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne currently: a simplified, back-to-basics Labuschagne, no longer as extremely focused with small details. “I feel like I’ve really simplified things,” he said after his ton. “Not overthinking, just what I must score runs.”

Naturally, few accept this. Most likely this is a rebrand that exists only in Labuschagne’s mind: still furiously stripping down that technique from morning to night, going more back to basics than any player has attempted. Like basic approach? Marnus will take time in the nets with trainers and footage, exhaustively remoulding himself into the most basic batsman that has ever existed. This is simply the trait of the obsessed, and the quality that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging players in the game.

The Broader Picture

Perhaps before this very open Ashes series, there is even a sort of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s endless focus. In England we have a side for whom technical study, let alone self-analysis, is a risky subject. Go with instinct. Focus on the present. Live in the instant.

In the other corner you have a player such as Labuschagne, a man completely dedicated with the game and magnificently unbothered by others’ opinions, who finds cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who handles this unusual pursuit with just the right measure of quirky respect it demands.

And it worked. During his intense period – from the time he walked out to substitute for an injured Steve Smith at Lord’s in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game on another level. To access it – through pure determination – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his stint in English county cricket, fellow players saw him on the morning of a game sitting on a park bench in a trance-like state, actually imagining every single ball of his time at the crease. According to the analytics firm, during the early stages of his career a unusually large proportion of catches were missed when he batted. Somehow Labuschagne had anticipated outcomes before others could react 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 boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Additionally – he began doubting his signature shot, got trapped on the crease and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his trainer, his coach, thinks a attention to shorter formats started to erode confidence in his alignment. Encouragingly: he’s just been dropped from the ODI side.

Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a devoutly religious individual, an committed Christian who thinks that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his role as one of accessing this state of flow, despite being puzzling it may look to the mortal of us.

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