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The Australian batsman carefully spreads butter on each surface of a slice of plain bread. “That’s essential,” he tells the camera as he brings down the lid of his grilled cheese press. “Perfect. Then you get it toasted on the outside.” He checks inside to reveal a perfectly browned of pure toasted goodness, the bubbling cheese happily melting inside. “Here’s the trick of the trade,” he announces. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

At this stage, it’s clear a layer of boredom is beginning to appear in your eyes. The red lights of overly fancy prose are flashing wildly. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne scored 160 for Queensland Bulls this week and is being feverishly talked up for an Australian Test recall before the Ashes series.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to endure several lines of light-hearted musing about grilled cheese, plus an additional unnecessary part of overly analytical commentary in the “you” perspective. You sigh again.

He turns the sandwich on to a plate and walks across the fridge. “Few try this,” he announces, “but I personally prefer the toastie cold. There, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, go for a hit, come back. Boom. Toastie’s ready to go.”

Back to Cricket

Okay, here’s the main point. Shall we get the cricket bit out of the way first? Little treat for reading until now. And while there may still be six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s hundred against the Tigers – his third of the summer in all formats – feels significantly impactful.

Here’s an Aussie opening batsmen clearly missing performance and method, revealed against South Africa in the WTC final, shown up once more in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was omitted during that trip, but on one hand you felt Australia were keen to restore him at the first opportunity. Now he looks to have given them the ideal reason.

And this is a plan that Australia need to work. Khawaja has one century in his recent 44 batting efforts. Sam Konstas looks hardly a Test opener and more like the good-looking star who might portray a cricketer in a Bollywood epic. Other candidates has presented a strong argument. McSweeney looks finished. Another option is still surprisingly included, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their leader, Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this feels like a unusually thin squad, lacking authority or balance, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a ball is bowled.

Marnus’s Comeback

Enter Marnus: a leading Test player as in the recent past, recently omitted from the 50-over squad, the perfect character to return structure to a brittle empire. And we are advised this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne currently: a simplified, back-to-basics Labuschagne, less extremely focused with technical minutiae. “I feel like I’ve really stripped it back,” he said after his century. “Not overthinking, just what I should make runs.”

Naturally, this is doubted. In all likelihood this is a fresh image that exists only in Labuschagne’s mind: still constantly refining that technique from morning to night, going deeper into fundamentals than anyone else would try. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will spend months in the training with coaches and video clips, exhaustively remoulding himself into the most basic batsman that has ever played. This is simply the nature of the addict, and the trait that has always made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating cricketers in the sport.

The Broader Picture

It could be before this inscrutably unpredictable England-Australia contest, there is even a type of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s constant dedication. For England we have a team for whom technical study, not to mention self-review, is a forbidden topic. Trust your gut. Stay in the moment. Live in the instant.

In the other corner you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a player completely dedicated with the game and magnificently unbothered by others’ opinions, who sees cricket even in the gaps in the game, who handles this unusual pursuit with exactly the level of absurd reverence it deserves.

His method paid off. During his focused era – from the moment he strode out to substitute for an injured Steve Smith at Lord’s in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne somehow managed to see the game with greater insight. To access it – through pure determination – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his time with club cricket, teammates would find him on the day of a match resting on a bench in a meditative condition, literally visualising each delivery of his batting stint. According to cricket statisticians, during the early stages of his career a surprisingly high catches were spilled from his batting. Somehow Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before fielders could respond to influence it.

Recent Challenges

It’s possible this was why his performance dipped 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 stopped trusting his favorite stroke, got unable to move forward and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his mentor, D’Costa, believes a focus on white-ball cricket started to weaken assurance in his positioning. Positive development: he’s just been dropped from the 50-over squad.

Certainly it’s relevant, too, that Labuschagne is a strongly faithful person, an committed Christian who believes that this is all predetermined, who thus sees his job as one of accessing this state of flow, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may look to the ordinary people.

This, to my mind, has always been the primary contrast between him and the other batsman, a more naturally gifted player