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The Australian batsman methodically applies butter on the top and bottom of a slice of white bread. “That’s the secret,” he explains as he lowers the lid of his sandwich grill. “Perfect. Then you get it crisp on each side.” He checks inside to reveal a golden square of pure toasted goodness, the bubbling cheese happily bubbling away. “So this is the secret method,” he declares. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

By now, I sense a glaze of ennui is beginning to appear in your eyes. The warning signs of sportswriting pretension are going off. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne hit 160 for Queensland Bulls this week and is being widely discussed for an national team comeback before the Ashes.

You probably want to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to sit through several lines of wobbling whimsy about toasted sandwiches, plus an further tangential section of overly analytical commentary in the second person. You sigh again.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a dish and moves toward the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he states, “but I actually like the toastie cold. Done, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, head to practice, come back. Alright. Sandwich is perfect.”

The Cricket Context

Look, let’s try it like this. Let’s address the match details to begin with? Small reward for your patience. And while there may still be six weeks until the series opener, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against Tasmania – his third in recent months in various games – feels quietly decisive.

This is an Australia top three clearly missing performance and method, exposed by the South African team in the Test championship decider, highlighted further in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was left out during that series, but on some level you felt Australia were keen to restore him at the soonest moment. Now he appears to have given them the perfect excuse.

And this is a strategy Australia must implement. The opener has just one 100 in his past 44 innings. Konstas looks not quite a Test match opener and closer to the good-looking star who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood epic. Other candidates has made a cogent case. McSweeney looks cooked. Harris is still surprisingly included, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their skipper, Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this appears as a weirdly lightweight side, missing strength or equilibrium, the kind of natural confidence that has often given Australia a lead before a game starts.

The Batsman’s Revival

Here comes Labuschagne: a leading Test player as just two years ago, recently omitted from the 50-over squad, the right person to return structure to a brittle empire. And we are told this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne currently: a pared-down, back-to-basics Labuschagne, less intensely fixated with technical minutiae. “I feel like I’ve really stripped it back,” he said after his hundred. “Not really too technical, just what I should bat effectively.”

Of course, this is doubted. In all likelihood this is a new approach that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s own head: still constantly refining that approach from dawn to dusk, going more back to basics than anyone else would try. Like basic approach? Marnus will devote weeks in the practice sessions with coaches and video clips, completely transforming into the least technical batter that has ever been seen. That’s the nature of the addict, and the characteristic that has long made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging cricketers in the game.

Wider Context

It could be before this very open Ashes series, there is even a sort of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s endless focus. In England we have a side for whom any kind of analysis, especially personal critique, is a risky subject. Feel the flavours. Be where the ball is. Embrace the current.

For Australia you have a player such as Labuschagne, a player terminally obsessed with cricket and wonderfully unconcerned by public perception, who observes cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who approaches this quirky game with exactly the level of absurd reverence it deserves.

And it worked. During his focused era – from the moment he strode out to come in for a hurt the senior batsman at Lord’s in 2019 to around the end of 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game more deeply. To tap into it – through sheer intensity of will – on a higher, weirder, more frenzied level. During his stint in English county cricket, colleagues noticed him on the morning of a game resting on a bench in a trance-like state, mentally rehearsing every single ball of his time at the crease. Per cricket statisticians, during the first few years of his career a surprisingly high number of chances were spilled from his batting. Somehow Labuschagne had anticipated outcomes before anyone had a chance to affect it.

Recent Challenges

Perhaps this was why his performance dipped the moment he reached the summit. There were no further goals to picture, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Furthermore – he began doubting 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 mentor, Neil D’Costa, thinks a focus on white-ball cricket started to undermine belief in his alignment. Positive development: he’s now excluded from the one-day team.

Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a devoutly religious individual, an religious believer who thinks that this is all predetermined, who thus sees his job as one of reaching this optimal zone, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may seem to the mortal of us.

This, to my mind, has always been the key distinction between him and the other batsman, a instinctive player