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The Australian batsman evenly coats butter on both sides of a slice of white bread. “That’s essential,” he tells the camera as he brings down the lid of his grilled cheese press. “Boom. Then you get it golden on the outside.” He opens the grill to reveal a toasted delight of delicious perfection, the gooey cheese happily sizzling within. “So this is the key technique,” he announces. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

By now, it’s clear a glaze of ennui is beginning to appear in your eyes. The warning signs of sportswriting pretension are blinking intensely. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne made 160 runs for his state team this week and is being feverishly talked up for an national team comeback before the England-Australia contest.

You probably want to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to sit through three paragraphs of playful digression about toasties, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of self-referential analysis in the direct address. You feel resigned.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a plate and heads over the fridge. “Not many people do this,” he remarks, “but I genuinely enjoy the cold toastie. Boom, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, head to practice, come back. Boom. Sandwich is perfect.”

The Cricket Context

Alright, here’s the main point. How about we cover the cricket bit out of the way first? Little treat for making it this far. And while there may be just six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s century against the Tigers – his third of the summer in all formats – feels importantly timed.

Here’s an Australia top three clearly missing performance and method, exposed by the Proteas in the WTC final, shown up once more in the Caribbean afterwards. Labuschagne was dropped during that tour, but on a certain level you sensed Australia were keen to restore him at the soonest moment. Now he looks to have given them the perfect excuse.

Here is a approach the team should follow. Khawaja has just one 100 in his past 44 innings. The young batsman looks less like a first-innings batsman and closer to the attractive performer who might act as a batsman in a Indian film. No other options has made a cogent case. Nathan McSweeney looks out of form. Another option is still inexplicably hanging around, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their captain, Cummins, is hurt and suddenly this appears as a unusually thin squad, short of command or stability, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often given Australia a lead before a ball is bowled.

Marnus’s Comeback

Step forward Marnus: a world No 1 Test batter as just two years ago, freshly dropped from the ODI side, the perfect character to return structure to a fragile lineup. And we are told this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne now: a pared-down, back-to-basics Labuschagne, less maniacally obsessed with minor adjustments. “It seems I’ve really cut out extras,” he said after his century. “Less focused on technique, just what I need to bat effectively.”

Clearly, few accept this. Probably this is a new approach that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s own head: still furiously stripping down that method from dawn to dusk, going deeper into fundamentals than any player has attempted. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will spend months in the nets with coaches and video clips, exhaustively remoulding himself into the least technical batter that has ever played. That’s the quality of the focused, and the trait that has always made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating cricketers in the sport.

The Broader Picture

It could be before this very open historic rivalry, there is even a sort of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. For England we have a side for whom technical study, let alone self-analysis, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Go with instinct. Be where the ball is. Smell the now.

In the other corner you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a man terminally obsessed with cricket and totally indifferent by others’ opinions, who finds cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who treats this absurd sport with precisely the amount of odd devotion it demands.

His method paid off. During his intense period – from the instant he appeared to come in for a hurt Smith at Lord’s in 2019 to until late 2022 – Labuschagne found a way to see the game with greater insight. To reach it – through sheer intensity of will – on a higher, weirder, more frenzied level. During his stint in English county cricket, teammates would find him on the game day positioned on a seat in a trance-like state, actually imagining all balls of his batting stint. Per Cricviz, during the early stages of his career a unusually large proportion of catches were missed when he batted. Remarkably Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before anyone had a chance to change it.

Recent Challenges

It’s possible 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. Also – to be fair – he stopped trusting his favorite stroke, got unable to move forward and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his trainer, his coach, reckons a focus on white-ball cricket started to undermine belief in his alignment. Encouragingly: he’s recently omitted from the 50-over squad.

Certainly it’s relevant, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an committed Christian who believes that this is all preordained, who thus sees his job as one of accessing this state of flow, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may seem to the mortal of us.

This approach, to my mind, has long been the main point of difference between him and Smith, a instinctive player