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Labuschagne methodically applies butter on both sides of a slice of plain bread. “That’s the key,” he tells the camera as he lowers the lid of his sandwich grill. “There you go. Then you get it toasted on the outside.” He opens the grill to reveal a perfectly browned of ideal crispiness, the bubbling cheese happily sizzling within. “And that’s the secret method,” he announces. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

By now, you may feel a glaze of ennui is beginning to cover your eyes. The warning signs of overly fancy prose are blinking intensely. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne hit 160 for Queensland Bulls this week and is being feverishly talked up for an return to the Test side before the Ashes series.

You probably want to read more about that. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to get through a section of playful digression about grilled cheese, plus an additional unnecessary part of self-referential analysis in the “you” perspective. You feel resigned.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a serving plate and moves toward the fridge. “Few try this,” he states, “but I genuinely enjoy the cold toastie. There, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, go bat, come back. Alright. Toastie’s ready to go.”

The Cricket Context

Alright, to cut to the chase. Shall we get the match details to begin with? Quick update for making it this far. And while there may still be six weeks until the series opener, Labuschagne’s century against the Tigers – his third of the summer in various games – feels importantly timed.

Here’s an Aussie opening batsmen badly short of form and structure, exposed by the Proteas in the Test championship decider, highlighted further in the Caribbean afterwards. Labuschagne was dropped during that series, but on one hand you felt Australia were eager to bring him back at the soonest moment. Now he appears to have given them the perfect excuse.

Here is a strategy Australia must implement. Usman Khawaja has one century in his recent 44 batting efforts. The young batsman looks not quite a Test match opener and more like the attractive performer who might play a Test opener in a Indian film. Other candidates has shown convincing form. One contender looks out of form. Another option is still inexplicably hanging around, like dust or mold. Meanwhile their leader, the pace bowler, is hurt and suddenly this seems like a unusually thin squad, lacking command or stability, the kind of natural confidence that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a ball is bowled.

Marnus’s Comeback

Enter Marnus: a top-ranked Test batsman as in the recent past, just left out from the 50-over squad, the ideal candidate to restore order to a shaky team. And we are informed this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne these days: a streamlined, back-to-basics Labuschagne, not as extremely focused with technical minutiae. “I believe I have really stripped it back,” he said after his century. “Not overthinking, just what I should score runs.”

Naturally, nobody truly believes this. In all likelihood this is a new approach that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s personal view: still constantly refining that method from all day, going deeper into fundamentals than anyone else would try. Like basic approach? Marnus will devote weeks in the practice sessions with advisors and replays, exhaustively remoulding himself into the most basic batsman that has ever played. This is simply the trait of the obsessed, and the trait that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging sportsmen in the sport.

Bigger Scene

Perhaps before this inscrutably unpredictable historic rivalry, there is even a kind of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. On England’s side we have a squad for whom any kind of analysis, especially personal critique, is a forbidden topic. Go with instinct. Focus on the present. Live in the instant.

In the other corner you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a man utterly absorbed with the game and wonderfully unconcerned by who knows about it, who sees cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who handles this unusual pursuit with precisely the amount of quirky respect it demands.

And it worked. During his intense period – from the time he walked out to come in for a hurt Smith at Lord’s in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne found a way to see the game more deeply. To access it – through absolute focus – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his stint in English county cricket, teammates would find him on the game day resting on a bench in a meditative condition, literally visualising every single ball of his innings. As per cricket statisticians, during the first few years of his career a unusually large number of chances were missed when he batted. Remarkably Labuschagne had predicted events before fielders could respond to affect it.

Form Issues

Maybe this was why his career began to disintegrate the time he achieved top ranking. There were no worlds left to visualise, just a empty space before his eyes. Furthermore – he lost faith in his cover drive, got trapped on the crease and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his trainer, his coach, believes a emphasis on limited-overs started to erode confidence in his technique. Positive development: he’s now excluded from the one-day team.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a strongly faithful person, an religious believer who thinks that this is all preordained, who thus sees his task as one of accessing this state of flow, despite being puzzling it may seem to the rest of us.

This, to my mind, has consistently been the key distinction between him and Smith, a instinctive player