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Labuschagne evenly coats butter on the top and bottom of a slice of plain bread. “That’s essential,” he tells the camera as he lowers the lid of his grilled cheese press. “There you go. Then you get it toasted on each side.” He lifts the lid to reveal a perfectly browned of pure toasted goodness, the melted cheese happily bubbling away. “And that’s the secret method,” he declares. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

At this stage, it’s clear a sense of disinterest is beginning to appear in your eyes. The red lights of elaborate writing are going off. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne scored 160 for Queensland this week and is being feverishly talked up for an national team comeback before the England-Australia contest.

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 sit through three paragraphs of wobbling whimsy about grilled cheese, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of self-referential analysis in the direct address. You groan once more.

He turns the sandwich on to a dish and moves toward the fridge. “Not many people do this,” he announces, “but I personally prefer the cold toastie. There, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, go bat, come back. Boom. Sandwich is perfect.”

On-Field Matters

Look, to cut to the chase. Let’s address the match details to begin with? Little treat for making it this far. And while there may be just six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s century against Tasmania – his third this season in all cricket – feels importantly timed.

We have an Australian top order clearly missing consistency and technique, shown up by the Proteas in the Test championship decider, exposed again in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was dropped during that trip, but on one hand you sensed Australia were desperate to rehabilitate him at the soonest moment. Now he looks to have given them the right opportunity.

Here is a plan that Australia need to work. Usman Khawaja has a single hundred in his past 44 innings. Sam Konstas looks less like a first-innings batsman and more like the attractive performer who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood movie. Other candidates has made a cogent case. One contender looks out of form. Another option is still surprisingly included, like dust or mold. Meanwhile their captain, Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this seems like a surprisingly weak team, missing command or stability, 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 just two years ago, freshly dropped from the 50-over squad, the perfect character to return structure to a fragile lineup. And we are told this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne these days: a streamlined, fundamental-focused Labuschagne, no longer as intensely fixated with minor adjustments. “I feel like I’ve really stripped it back,” he said after his ton. “Less focused on technique, just what I must make runs.”

Clearly, nobody truly believes this. Most likely this is a new approach that exists only in Labuschagne’s personal view: still constantly refining that method from all day, going more back to basics than anyone has ever dared. You want less technical? Marnus will spend months in the training with trainers and footage, completely transforming into the most basic batsman that has ever existed. This is just the trait of the obsessed, and the quality that has always made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating players in the game.

The Broader Picture

It could be before this highly uncertain Ashes series, there is even a type of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s endless focus. In England we have a side for whom technical study, especially personal critique, is a forbidden topic. Feel the flavours. Stay in the moment. Live in the instant.

In the other corner you have a individual like Labuschagne, a player terminally obsessed with the sport and totally indifferent by others’ opinions, who observes cricket even in the moments outside play, who approaches this quirky game with precisely the amount of quirky respect it deserves.

This approach succeeded. During his intense period – from the time he walked out to substitute for an injured Steve Smith at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 2019 to around the end of 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game on another level. To reach it – through sheer intensity of will – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his time with club cricket, fellow players saw him on the day of a match sitting on a park bench in a trance-like state, actually imagining each delivery of his time at the crease. As per cricket statisticians, during the initial period of his career a unusually large proportion of catches were dropped off his bat. In some way Labuschagne had predicted events before others could react to change it.

Current Struggles

Perhaps this was why his form started to decline the time he achieved top ranking. There were no new heights to imagine, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Furthermore – he stopped trusting his favorite stroke, got trapped on the crease and seemed to misjudge his positioning. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his mentor, D’Costa, reckons a attention to shorter formats started to erode confidence in his technique. Positive development: he’s now excluded from the one-day team.

Certainly it’s relevant, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an religious believer who thinks that this is all predetermined, who thus sees his task as one of reaching this optimal zone, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may look to the ordinary people.

This approach, to my mind, has long been the primary contrast between him and Steve Smith, a instinctive player