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Marnus methodically applies butter on the top and bottom of a slice of plain bread. “That’s the key,” he states as he lowers the lid of his sandwich grill. “Perfect. Then you get it crisp on the outside.” He lifts the lid to reveal a golden square of delicious perfection, the melted cheese happily melting inside. “So this is the key technique,” he declares. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

At this stage, it’s clear a layer of boredom is beginning to cover your eyes. The warning signs of elaborate writing are going off. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne hit 160 for Queensland Bulls this week and is being widely discussed for an Australian Test recall 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 sit through three paragraphs of light-hearted musing about toasted sandwiches, plus an further tangential section of self-referential analysis in the second person. You groan once more.

He turns the sandwich on to a plate and walks across the fridge. “Not many people do this,” he remarks, “but I personally prefer the grilled sandwich chilled. There, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, go bat, come back. Boom. It’s ideal.”

On-Field Matters

Look, let’s try it like this. Let’s address the match details out of the way first? Quick update for reading until now. And while there may still be six weeks until the series opener, Labuschagne’s hundred against the Tigers – his third this season in various games – feels significantly impactful.

Here’s an Aussie opening batsmen badly short of consistency and technique, revealed against the South African team in the World Test Championship final, highlighted further in the Caribbean afterwards. Labuschagne was omitted during that series, but on a certain level you sensed Australia were keen to restore him at the soonest moment. Now he appears to have given them the perfect excuse.

This represents a strategy Australia must implement. The opener has a single hundred in his past 44 innings. Konstas looks less like a Test opener and rather like the good-looking star who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood movie. No other options has made a cogent case. McSweeney looks cooked. Another option is still surprisingly included, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their skipper, Cummins, is injured and suddenly this appears as a surprisingly weak team, lacking authority or balance, the kind of built-in belief that has often helped Australia dominate before a ball is bowled.

The Batsman’s Revival

Here comes Labuschagne: a leading Test player as recently as 2023, just left out from the 50-over squad, the perfect character to return structure to a brittle empire. And we are informed this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne now: a simplified, fundamental-focused Labuschagne, no longer as intensely fixated with minor adjustments. “I feel like I’ve really simplified things,” he said after his ton. “Not overthinking, just what I should bat effectively.”

Of course, this is doubted. Probably this is a fresh image that exists only in Labuschagne’s personal view: still endlessly adjusting that technique from morning to night, going more back to basics than anyone else would try. You want less technical? Marnus will devote weeks in the training with coaches and video clips, completely transforming into the simplest player that has ever been seen. That’s the nature of the addict, and the characteristic that has long made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating cricketers in the cricket.

The Broader Picture

It could be before this highly uncertain England-Australia contest, there is even a type of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. On England’s side we have a squad for whom technical study, especially personal critique, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Trust your gut. Focus on the present. Smell the now.

In the other corner you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a player completely dedicated with cricket and totally indifferent by others’ opinions, who sees cricket even in the moments outside play, who approaches this quirky game with just the right measure of absurd reverence it demands.

This approach succeeded. During his intense period – from the time he walked out to substitute for an injured Steve Smith at the famous ground in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne found a way to see the game more deeply. To reach it – through absolute focus – on a higher, weirder, more frenzied level. During his time with English county cricket, fellow players saw him on the game day sitting on a park bench in a focused mindset, actually imagining each delivery of his time at the crease. As per cricket statisticians, during the early stages of his career a unusually large proportion of catches were spilled from his batting. Somehow Labuschagne had predicted events before others could react to influence it.

Form Issues

Perhaps this was why his form started to decline the moment he reached the summit. There were no new heights to imagine, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Furthermore – he stopped trusting his signature shot, got stuck in his crease and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his coach, D’Costa, reckons a focus on white-ball cricket started to erode confidence in his alignment. Good news: he’s now excluded from the one-day team.

Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a strongly faithful person, an religious believer who believes that this is all preordained, who thus sees his job as one of reaching this optimal zone, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may appear to the mortal of us.

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