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The Australian batsman methodically applies butter on both sides of a slice of white bread. “That’s essential,” he explains as he closes the lid of his toastie maker. “Boom. Then you get it toasted on both sides.” He lifts the lid to reveal a perfectly browned of pure toasted goodness, the melted cheese happily sizzling within. “So this is the trick of the trade,” he declares. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

By now, it’s clear a glaze of ennui is beginning to cover your eyes. The warning signs of overly fancy prose are flashing wildly. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne hit 160 for Queensland Bulls this week and is being eagerly promoted for an national team comeback before the England-Australia contest.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about that. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to get through three paragraphs of playful digression about toasties, plus an additional unnecessary part of tiresome meta‑deconstruction in the “you” perspective. You groan once more.

He turns the sandwich on to a serving plate and heads over the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he states, “but I personally prefer the cold toastie. Done, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, go bat, come back. Boom. It’s ideal.”

On-Field Matters

Okay, here’s the main point. How about we cover the cricket bit to begin with? Quick update for reading until now. And while there may be just six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against Tasmania – his third this season in all formats – feels importantly timed.

Here’s an Australia top three seriously lacking performance and method, exposed by the South African team in the Test championship decider, exposed again in the Caribbean afterwards. Labuschagne was left out during that series, but on a certain level you felt Australia were eager to bring him back at the soonest moment. Now he looks to have given them the ideal reason.

This represents a approach the team should follow. The opener has just one 100 in his past 44 innings. Konstas looks less like a Test match opener and closer to the good-looking star who might portray a cricketer in a Bollywood movie. None of the alternatives has shown convincing form. One contender looks finished. Another option is still inexplicably hanging around, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their skipper, the pace bowler, is hurt and suddenly this seems like a surprisingly weak team, lacking strength or equilibrium, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a ball is bowled.

The Batsman’s Revival

Enter Marnus: a top-ranked Test batsman as just two years ago, recently omitted from the ODI side, the ideal candidate to restore order to a fragile lineup. And we are advised this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne currently: a streamlined, fundamental-focused Labuschagne, no longer as intensely fixated with technical minutiae. “I feel like I’ve really cut out extras,” he said after his hundred. “Less focused on technique, just what I need to score runs.”

Clearly, nobody truly believes this. Probably this is a rebrand that exists just in Labuschagne’s own head: still endlessly adjusting that method from dawn to dusk, going deeper into fundamentals than anyone has ever dared. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will spend months in the nets with advisors and replays, exhaustively remoulding himself into the most basic batsman that has ever been seen. This is just the trait of the obsessed, and the trait that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing sportsmen in the game.

Bigger Scene

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 detailed examination, let alone self-analysis, is a risky subject. Go with instinct. Focus on the present. Smell the now.

On the opposite side you have a individual like Labuschagne, a man completely dedicated with the game and totally indifferent by public perception, who sees cricket even in the gaps in the game, who treats this absurd sport with exactly the level of quirky respect it requires.

This approach succeeded. During his intense period – from the time he walked out to substitute for an injured Steve Smith at Lord’s in 2019 to until late 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game with greater insight. To access it – through sheer intensity of will – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his stint in English county cricket, colleagues noticed him on the game day resting on a bench in a meditative condition, mentally rehearsing every single ball of his innings. Per cricket statisticians, during the first few years of his career a statistically unfathomable proportion of catches were missed when he batted. In some way Labuschagne had anticipated outcomes before anyone had a chance to affect it.

Recent Challenges

It’s possible this was why his career began to disintegrate 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 forget where his off-stump was. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his coach, D’Costa, reckons a attention to shorter formats started to undermine belief in his technique. Encouragingly: he’s just been dropped from the 50-over squad.

Certainly it’s relevant, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an religious believer who holds that this is all predetermined, who thus sees his task as one of accessing this state of flow, no matter how mysterious it may appear to the mortal of us.

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