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Labuschagne evenly coats butter on both sides of a slice of soft bread. “That’s the secret,” he states as he closes the lid of his toastie maker. “Perfect. Then you get it golden on both sides.” He opens the grill to reveal a golden square of pure toasted goodness, the bubbling cheese happily bubbling away. “And that’s the key technique,” he explains. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

By now, I sense a sense of disinterest is beginning to appear in your eyes. The alarm bells of sportswriting pretension are going off. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne scored 160 for his state team this week and is being eagerly promoted for an national team comeback before the Ashes series.

You probably want to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to endure three paragraphs of light-hearted musing about toasted sandwiches, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of overly analytical commentary in the second person. You feel resigned.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a dish and heads over the fridge. “Not many people do this,” he states, “but I personally prefer the grilled sandwich chilled. Done, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, go for a hit, come back. Alright. Sandwich is perfect.”

On-Field Matters

Alright, to cut to the chase. Let’s address the cricket bit to begin with? Little treat for your patience. And while there may be just six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s century against Tasmania – his third this season in various games – feels quietly decisive.

Here’s an Aussie opening batsmen badly short of consistency and technique, exposed by the Proteas in the World Test Championship final, exposed again in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was omitted during that trip, but on some level you felt Australia were desperate to rehabilitate him at the first opportunity. Now he looks to have given them the perfect excuse.

And this is a plan that Australia need to work. Usman Khawaja has just one 100 in his past 44 innings. Sam Konstas looks less like a Test opener and closer to the attractive performer who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood movie. Other candidates has presented a strong argument. McSweeney looks cooked. Another option is still oddly present, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their skipper, Cummins, is injured and suddenly this appears as a unusually thin squad, short of strength or equilibrium, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often given Australia a lead before a match begins.

Labuschagne’s Return

Here comes Labuschagne: a leading Test player as in the recent past, just left out from the one-day team, the right person to bring stability to a fragile lineup. And we are told this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne now: a pared-down, fundamental-focused Labuschagne, not as intensely fixated with technical minutiae. “I feel like I’ve really simplified things,” he said after his ton. “Not overthinking, just what I must score runs.”

Clearly, this is doubted. In all likelihood this is a rebrand that exists just in Labuschagne’s mind: still furiously stripping down that approach from morning to night, going more back to basics than anyone else would try. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will spend months in the training with coaches and video clips, thoroughly reshaping his game into the most basic batsman that has ever existed. This is simply the quality of the focused, and the quality that has always made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating cricketers in the cricket.

Bigger Scene

Perhaps before this very open historic rivalry, there is even a type of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s endless focus. In England we have a team for whom detailed examination, especially personal critique, is a forbidden topic. Go with instinct. Stay in the moment. Embrace the current.

For Australia you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a player utterly absorbed with the sport and wonderfully unconcerned by public perception, who observes cricket even in the gaps in the game, who approaches this quirky game with exactly the level of quirky respect it deserves.

This approach succeeded. During his intense period – from the time he walked out to come in for a hurt the senior batsman at Lord’s in 2019 to around the end of 2022 – Labuschagne somehow managed to see the game with greater insight. To access it – through sheer intensity of will – on a higher, weirder, more frenzied level. During his days playing Kent league cricket, teammates would find him on the game day sitting on a park bench in a focused mindset, actually imagining each delivery of his innings. As per the analytics firm, during the initial period of his career a unusually large number of chances were missed when he batted. In some way Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before anyone had a chance to change it.

Current Struggles

It’s possible this was why his form started to decline the time he achieved top ranking. There were no further goals to picture, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he stopped trusting his favorite stroke, got stuck in his crease and seemed to misjudge his positioning. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his mentor, Neil D’Costa, believes a emphasis on limited-overs started to weaken assurance in his alignment. Good news: he’s recently omitted from the one-day team.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a strongly faithful person, an committed Christian who thinks that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his task as one of reaching this optimal zone, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may seem to the mortal of us.

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