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Labuschagne carefully spreads butter on both sides of a slice of plain bread. “That’s the key,” he tells the camera as he brings down the lid of his grilled cheese press. “There you go. Then you get it crisp on each side.” He lifts the lid to reveal a golden square of ideal crispiness, the gooey cheese happily bubbling away. “Here’s the secret method,” he declares. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

Already, it’s clear a layer of boredom is beginning to cover your eyes. The red lights of elaborate writing are flashing wildly. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne made 160 runs for Queensland this week and is being eagerly promoted for an national team comeback before the Ashes.

You probably want to read more about his performance. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to get through a section of light-hearted musing about toasties, plus an additional unnecessary part of overly analytical commentary in the “you” perspective. You groan once more.

He turns the sandwich on to a dish and moves toward the fridge. “Few try this,” he remarks, “but I genuinely enjoy the toastie cold. There, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, head to practice, come back. Perfect. Toastie’s ready to go.”

On-Field Matters

Look, let’s try it like this. Let’s address the match details initially? Little treat for your patience. And while there may be just six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s century against Tasmania – his third in recent months in all cricket – feels importantly timed.

This is an Australia top three badly short of performance and method, shown up by the South African team in the WTC final, shown up once more in the Caribbean afterwards. Labuschagne was dropped during that trip, but on some level you felt Australia were eager to bring him back at the soonest moment. Now he appears to have given them the ideal reason.

This represents a approach the team should follow. Usman Khawaja has just one 100 in his past 44 innings. The young batsman looks not quite a Test match opener and closer to the handsome actor who might portray a cricketer in a Bollywood epic. None of the alternatives has presented a strong argument. One contender looks out of form. Harris is still oddly present, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their leader, Cummins, is hurt and suddenly this feels like a weirdly lightweight side, missing authority or balance, the kind of natural confidence that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a match begins.

Marnus’s Comeback

Step forward Marnus: a leading Test player as in the recent past, just left out from the 50-over squad, the ideal candidate to return structure to a brittle empire. And we are informed this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne currently: a streamlined, fundamental-focused Labuschagne, not as extremely focused with minor adjustments. “I believe I have really stripped it back,” he said after his ton. “Less focused on technique, just what I need to make runs.”

Naturally, this is doubted. In all likelihood this is a rebrand that exists only in Labuschagne’s mind: still constantly refining that approach from morning to night, going deeper into fundamentals than anyone else would try. Like basic approach? Marnus will take time in the practice sessions with trainers and footage, completely transforming into the simplest player that has ever been seen. This is just the quality of the focused, and the characteristic that has always made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating players in the game.

Bigger Scene

It could be before this highly uncertain Ashes series, there is even a kind of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. In England we have a team for whom any kind of analysis, let alone self-analysis, is a forbidden topic. Trust your gut. Stay in the moment. Embrace the current.

In the other corner you have a individual like Labuschagne, a player utterly absorbed with the sport and wonderfully unconcerned by who knows about it, who observes cricket even in the moments outside play, who treats this absurd sport with exactly the level of quirky respect it demands.

This approach succeeded. During his intense period – from the instant he appeared to substitute for an injured the senior batsman at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne somehow managed to see the game on another level. To access it – through sheer intensity of will – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his days playing Kent league cricket, fellow players saw him on the morning of a game resting on a bench in a trance-like state, actually imagining every single ball of his batting stint. According to Cricviz, during the early stages of his career a statistically unfathomable proportion of catches were missed when he batted. In some way Labuschagne had predicted events before anyone had a chance to influence it.

Form Issues

It’s possible this was why his form started to decline the point he became number one. There were no new heights to imagine, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he lost faith in his favorite stroke, got trapped on the crease and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his mentor, 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 man of deep religious faith, an committed Christian who believes that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his task as one of accessing this state of flow, no matter how mysterious it may appear to the rest of us.

This approach, to my mind, has always been the primary contrast between him and Steve Smith, a inherently talented player