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Marnus carefully spreads butter on each surface of a slice of soft bread. “That’s the key,” he explains as he brings down the lid of his sandwich grill. “Perfect. Then you get it golden on both sides.” He checks inside to reveal a perfectly browned of delicious perfection, the bubbling cheese happily bubbling away. “Here’s the secret method,” he explains. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

At this stage, you may feel a glaze of ennui is beginning to form across your eyes. The alarm bells of sportswriting pretension are flashing wildly. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne hit 160 for Queensland this week and is being widely discussed for an national team comeback before the Ashes series.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to sit through a section of playful digression about grilled cheese, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of overly analytical commentary in the second person. You feel resigned.

He turns the sandwich on to a serving plate and walks across the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he remarks, “but I actually like the toastie cold. There, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, go for a hit, come back. Alright. Sandwich is perfect.”

On-Field Matters

Okay, let’s try it like this. How about we cover the cricket bit initially? Little treat for making it this far. And while there may be just six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s century against the Tigers – his third of the summer in all formats – feels significantly impactful.

Here’s an Australia top three badly short of performance and method, revealed against the Proteas in the World Test Championship final, highlighted further in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was omitted during that trip, but on one hand you gathered Australia were keen to restore him at the earliest chance. Now he seems to have given them the perfect excuse.

And this is a plan that Australia need to work. The opener has one century in his recent 44 batting efforts. Sam Konstas looks hardly a Test match opener and closer to the handsome actor who might play a Test opener in a Indian film. No other options has made a cogent case. One contender looks finished. Another option is still oddly present, like dust or mold. Meanwhile their leader, the pace bowler, is injured and suddenly this feels like a weirdly lightweight side, lacking authority or balance, the kind of natural confidence that has often given Australia a lead before a game starts.

The Batsman’s Revival

Here comes Labuschagne: a world No 1 Test batter as recently as 2023, freshly dropped from the one-day team, the perfect character to bring stability to a brittle empire. And we are advised this is a composed and reflective Labuschagne currently: a streamlined, no-frills Labuschagne, less extremely focused with small details. “I feel like I’ve really cut out extras,” he said after his ton. “Less focused on technique, just what I should make runs.”

Clearly, few accept this. In all likelihood this is a fresh image that exists only in Labuschagne’s mind: still endlessly adjusting that approach from all day, going deeper into fundamentals than any player has attempted. 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. That’s the quality of the focused, and the characteristic that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating cricketers in the cricket.

Wider Context

Perhaps before this very open Ashes series, there is even a type of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s endless focus. For England we have a side for whom technical study, let alone self-analysis, is a risky subject. Trust your gut. Be where the ball is. Embrace the current.

In the other corner you have a player such as Labuschagne, a player terminally obsessed with cricket and totally indifferent by public perception, who sees cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who handles this unusual pursuit with just the right measure of absurd reverence it deserves.

And it worked. During his shamanic phase – from the instant he appeared to substitute for an injured Steve Smith at Lord’s in 2019 to until late 2022 – Labuschagne somehow managed to see the game on another level. To tap into it – through pure determination – on a higher, weirder, more frenzied level. During his time with Kent league cricket, colleagues noticed him on the game day resting on a bench in a meditative condition, literally visualising each delivery of his time at the crease. According to cricket statisticians, during the first few years of his career a surprisingly high proportion of catches were missed when he batted. Remarkably Labuschagne had predicted events before fielders could respond to influence it.

Recent Challenges

Maybe this was why his career began to disintegrate the time he achieved top ranking. There were no further goals to picture, just a empty space before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he lost faith in his cover drive, got trapped on the crease and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his mentor, his coach, believes a focus on white-ball cricket started to erode confidence in his alignment. Positive development: he’s recently omitted from the 50-over squad.

Certainly it’s relevant, too, that Labuschagne is a devoutly religious individual, an evangelical 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 appear to the ordinary people.

This mindset, to my mind, has long been the main point of difference between him and the other batsman, a more naturally gifted player