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Labuschagne carefully spreads butter on the top and bottom of a slice of white bread. “That’s the key,” he tells the camera as he lowers the lid of his toastie maker. “There you go. Then you get it golden on the outside.” He opens the grill to reveal a perfectly browned of pure toasted goodness, the gooey cheese happily melting inside. “And that’s the trick of the trade,” he announces. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

By now, I sense a sense of disinterest is beginning to cover your eyes. The alarm bells of sportswriting pretension are blinking intensely. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne hit 160 for Queensland Bulls this week and is being widely discussed for an Australian Test recall before the England-Australia contest.

You likely wish to read more about that. But first – you now understand with frustration – you’re going to have to sit through several lines of light-hearted musing about toasted sandwiches, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of tiresome meta‑deconstruction in the “you” perspective. You feel resigned.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a dish and walks across the fridge. “Not many people do this,” he states, “but I personally prefer the cold toastie. There, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, head to practice, come back. Alright. It’s ideal.”

Back to Cricket

Okay, here’s the main point. Shall we get the sports aspect out of the way first? Small reward for your patience. And while there may still be six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s century against Tasmania – his third this season in all cricket – feels significantly impactful.

We have an Australia top three badly short of form and structure, shown up by the Proteas in the WTC final, highlighted further in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was omitted during that tour, but on one hand you sensed Australia were eager to bring him back at the soonest moment. Now he seems to have given them the perfect excuse.

This represents a approach the team should follow. Usman Khawaja has just one 100 in his past 44 innings. The young batsman looks hardly a first-innings batsman and more like the handsome actor who might act as a batsman in a Indian film. Other candidates has shown convincing form. Nathan McSweeney looks finished. Harris is still surprisingly included, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their leader, Pat Cummins, is hurt and suddenly this appears as a weirdly lightweight side, missing strength or equilibrium, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often helped Australia dominate before a ball is bowled.

Labuschagne’s Return

Step forward Marnus: a top-ranked Test batsman as just two years ago, freshly dropped from the 50-over squad, the ideal candidate to restore order to a brittle empire. And we are advised this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne now: a pared-down, back-to-basics Labuschagne, no longer as extremely focused with technical minutiae. “I feel like I’ve really simplified things,” he said after his ton. “Not overthinking, just what I must bat effectively.”

Naturally, few accept this. Probably this is a rebrand that exists just in Labuschagne’s own head: still constantly refining that approach from morning to night, going further toward simplicity than anyone else would try. Like basic approach? Marnus will take time in the nets with advisors and replays, completely transforming into the most basic batsman that has ever existed. This is simply the nature of the addict, and the characteristic that has long made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging sportsmen in the sport.

Wider Context

Maybe before this very open Ashes series, there is even a kind of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. For England we have a team for whom any kind of analysis, not to mention self-review, is a risky subject. Go with instinct. Be where the ball is. Live in the instant.

In the other corner you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a man utterly absorbed with the sport and totally indifferent by others’ opinions, who sees cricket even in the gaps in the game, who handles this unusual pursuit with just the right measure of quirky respect it deserves.

His method paid off. During his shamanic phase – from the moment he strode out to substitute for an injured Steve Smith at Lord’s in 2019 to around the end of 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game more deeply. To access it – through absolute focus – on a elevated, strange, passionate tier. During his days playing 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 time at the crease. As per cricket statisticians, during the initial period of his career a statistically unfathomable catches were spilled from his batting. In some way Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before anyone had a chance to affect it.

Form Issues

Perhaps this was why his performance dipped the moment he reached the summit. There were no worlds left to visualise, just a empty space before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he lost faith in his signature shot, got unable to move forward and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his mentor, D’Costa, reckons a focus on white-ball cricket started to weaken assurance in his alignment. Good news: he’s just been dropped from the ODI side.

Certainly it’s relevant, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an religious believer who believes that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his job as one of reaching this optimal zone, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may appear to the rest of us.

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