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Labuschagne methodically applies butter on the top and bottom of a slice of plain bread. “That’s the secret,” he tells the camera as he closes the lid of his sandwich grill. “Perfect. Then you get it toasted on both sides.” He lifts the lid to reveal a perfectly browned of delicious perfection, the bubbling cheese happily melting inside. “Here’s the key technique,” he announces. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

By now, I sense a sense of disinterest is beginning to form across your eyes. The red lights of elaborate writing are going off. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne scored 160 for Queensland Bulls this week and is being eagerly promoted for an Australian Test recall before the Ashes.

You likely wish to read more about his performance. But first – you now understand with frustration – you’re going to have to sit through several lines of light-hearted musing about grilled cheese, plus an additional unnecessary part of tiresome meta‑deconstruction in the direct address. You feel resigned.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a serving plate and walks across the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he states, “but I genuinely enjoy the cold toastie. Boom, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, go for a hit, come back. Boom. It’s ideal.”

On-Field Matters

Okay, here’s the main point. Let’s address the sports aspect out of the way first? Little treat for your patience. And while there may still be six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against Tasmania – his third of the summer in various games – feels importantly timed.

We have an Aussie opening batsmen badly short of consistency and technique, exposed by South Africa in the Test championship decider, highlighted further in the Caribbean afterwards. Labuschagne was left out during that series, but on one hand you sensed Australia were keen to restore him at the first opportunity. Now he seems to have given them the right opportunity.

This represents a strategy Australia must implement. Khawaja has a single hundred in his past 44 innings. The young batsman looks less like a first-innings batsman and closer to the handsome actor who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood movie. None of the alternatives has presented a strong argument. Nathan McSweeney looks cooked. Another option is still oddly present, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their skipper, Pat Cummins, is injured and suddenly this feels like a surprisingly weak team, missing strength or equilibrium, the kind of built-in belief that has often helped Australia dominate before a ball is bowled.

Marnus’s Comeback

Step forward Marnus: a top-ranked Test batsman as just two years ago, recently omitted from the one-day team, the perfect character to restore order to a brittle empire. And we are advised this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne currently: a pared-down, back-to-basics Labuschagne, not as intensely fixated with minor adjustments. “I feel like I’ve really simplified things,” he said after his hundred. “Less focused on technique, just what I need to bat effectively.”

Of course, this is doubted. Probably this is a rebrand that exists only in Labuschagne’s mind: still endlessly adjusting that technique from all day, going more back to basics than anyone else would try. You want less technical? Marnus will devote weeks in the training with advisors and replays, exhaustively remoulding himself into the most basic batsman that has ever existed. This is simply the quality of the focused, and the characteristic that has always made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing players in the game.

Wider Context

Maybe before this very open Ashes series, there is even a sort of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. For England we have a squad for whom detailed examination, let alone self-analysis, is a forbidden topic. Feel the flavours. Be where the ball is. Smell the now.

In the other corner you have a player such as Labuschagne, a man utterly absorbed with cricket and wonderfully unconcerned by public perception, who sees cricket even in the moments outside play, who handles this unusual pursuit with just the right measure of odd devotion it demands.

And it worked. During his intense period – from the moment he strode out to come in for a hurt Steve Smith at Lord’s in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game more deeply. To reach it – through sheer intensity of will – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his time with English county cricket, fellow players saw him on the morning of a game sitting on a park bench in a trance-like state, mentally rehearsing every single ball of his batting stint. Per cricket statisticians, during the initial period of his career a unusually large number of chances were missed when he batted. In some way Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before fielders could respond to affect it.

Form Issues

It’s possible this was why his form started to decline the moment he reached the summit. There were no further goals to picture, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Furthermore – he stopped trusting his favorite stroke, got unable to move forward and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his mentor, Neil D’Costa, believes a focus on white-ball cricket started to undermine belief in his technique. Encouragingly: he’s just been dropped from the one-day team.

Certainly it’s relevant, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an committed Christian who holds that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his job as one of achieving this peak performance, despite being puzzling it may appear to the mortal of us.

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