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Marnus evenly coats butter on both sides of a slice of soft bread. “That’s the secret,” he tells the camera as he closes the lid of his sandwich grill. “Perfect. Then you get it golden on the outside.” He checks inside to reveal a toasted delight of pure toasted goodness, the melted cheese happily melting inside. “So this is the key technique,” he explains. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

At this stage, you may feel a glaze of ennui is beginning to form across your eyes. The alarm bells of sportswriting pretension are flashing wildly. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne made 160 runs for his state team this week and is being feverishly talked up for an return to the Test side before the Ashes.

You probably want to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now understand with frustration – you’re going to have to get through several lines 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 serving plate and moves toward the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he remarks, “but I actually like the grilled sandwich chilled. Done, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, head to practice, come back. Boom. Sandwich is perfect.”

On-Field Matters

Okay, let’s try it like this. Shall we get the match details out of the way first? Little treat 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 of the summer in various games – feels significantly impactful.

We have an Australia top three seriously lacking performance and method, revealed against the Proteas in the Test championship decider, shown up once more in the Caribbean afterwards. Labuschagne was dropped during that tour, but on a certain level you felt Australia were eager to bring him back at the earliest chance. Now he appears to have given them the ideal reason.

This represents a approach the team should follow. The opener has one century in his last 44 knocks. Sam Konstas looks less like a Test match opener and closer to the attractive performer who might play a Test opener in a Bollywood movie. None of the alternatives has presented a strong argument. One contender looks cooked. Another option is still surprisingly included, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their captain, Pat Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this appears as a weirdly lightweight side, short of command or stability, the kind of natural confidence that has often helped Australia dominate before a ball is bowled.

Labuschagne’s Return

Step forward Marnus: a world No 1 Test batter as in the recent past, just left out from the ODI side, the ideal candidate to return structure to a fragile lineup. And we are told this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne now: a simplified, back-to-basics Labuschagne, less intensely fixated with technical minutiae. “I feel like I’ve really simplified things,” he said after his century. “Less focused on technique, just what I must make runs.”

Naturally, nobody truly believes this. Most likely this is a fresh image that exists just in Labuschagne’s own head: still endlessly adjusting that approach from all day, going more back to basics than any player has attempted. Like basic approach? Marnus will take time in the training with trainers and footage, exhaustively remoulding himself into the most basic batsman that has ever played. That’s the trait of the obsessed, and the characteristic that has always made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing sportsmen in the cricket.

Bigger Scene

Perhaps before this very open England-Australia contest, there is even a sort of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s constant dedication. On England’s side we have a squad for whom technical study, not to mention self-review, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Feel the flavours. Focus on the present. Live in the instant.

For Australia you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a player completely dedicated with cricket and wonderfully unconcerned by who knows about it, who observes cricket even in the moments outside play, who handles this unusual pursuit with exactly the level of quirky respect it demands.

His method paid off. During his shamanic phase – from the instant he appeared to come in for a hurt Smith at the famous ground in 2019 to until late 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game more deeply. To access it – through pure determination – on a elevated, strange, passionate tier. During his stint in Kent league cricket, fellow players saw him on the morning of a game sitting on a park bench in a trance-like state, mentally rehearsing each delivery of his time at the crease. As per cricket statisticians, during the early stages of his career a statistically unfathomable catches were dropped off his bat. Remarkably Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before others could react to influence it.

Current Struggles

Maybe this was why his performance dipped the point he became number one. There were no worlds left to visualise, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Furthermore – he lost faith in his favorite stroke, got stuck in his crease and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his mentor, his coach, believes a focus on white-ball cricket started to undermine belief in his technique. Positive development: he’s recently omitted from the ODI side.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a strongly faithful person, an religious believer who thinks that this is all preordained, who thus sees his task as one of achieving this peak performance, no matter how mysterious it may appear to the rest of us.

This mindset, to my mind, has always been the key distinction between him and Steve Smith, a inherently talented player