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Labuschagne evenly coats butter on each surface of a slice of white bread. “That’s essential,” he tells the camera as he lowers the lid of his sandwich grill. “Perfect. Then you get it golden on each side.” He opens the grill to reveal a perfectly browned of ideal crispiness, the gooey cheese happily sizzling within. “And that’s the key technique,” he announces. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

By now, you may feel a layer of boredom is beginning to appear in your eyes. The red lights of sportswriting pretension are blinking intensely. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne made 160 runs for his state team this week and is being widely discussed for an return to the Test side before the Ashes series.

You likely wish to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to sit through three paragraphs of light-hearted musing about grilled cheese, plus an additional unnecessary part of tiresome meta‑deconstruction in the second person. You groan once more.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a dish and heads over the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he states, “but I genuinely enjoy the toastie cold. Done, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, go bat, come back. Alright. Sandwich is perfect.”

Back to Cricket

Alright, here’s the main point. Shall we get the sports aspect initially? Small reward for your patience. And while there may be just six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against the Tasmanian side – his third this season in various games – feels importantly timed.

Here’s an Australia top three badly short of form and structure, exposed by the South African team in the Test championship decider, exposed again in the Caribbean afterwards. Labuschagne was omitted during that tour, but on one hand you sensed Australia were desperate to rehabilitate him at the soonest moment. Now he looks to have given them the right opportunity.

And this is a approach the team should follow. Khawaja has a single hundred in his last 44 knocks. Konstas looks hardly a Test match opener and more like the handsome actor who might portray a cricketer in a Bollywood movie. No other options has presented a strong argument. McSweeney looks finished. Another option is still oddly present, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their leader, Cummins, is hurt and suddenly this seems like a unusually thin squad, missing strength or equilibrium, the kind of natural confidence that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a game starts.

Labuschagne’s Return

Step forward Marnus: a top-ranked Test batsman as in the recent past, just left out from the one-day team, the ideal candidate to return structure to a fragile lineup. And we are told this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne these days: a simplified, no-frills Labuschagne, not as intensely fixated with technical minutiae. “I feel like I’ve really cut out extras,” he said after his century. “Less focused on technique, just what I must make runs.”

Clearly, this is doubted. Most likely this is a rebrand that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s own head: still endlessly adjusting that approach from all day, going more back to basics than any player has attempted. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will take time in the nets with coaches and video clips, exhaustively remoulding himself into the simplest player that has ever been seen. This is just the nature of the addict, and the quality that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating sportsmen in the game.

The Broader Picture

Maybe before this highly uncertain Ashes series, there is even a type of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. For England we have a squad for whom any kind of analysis, let alone self-analysis, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Go with instinct. Stay in the moment. Live in the instant.

On the opposite side you have a player such as Labuschagne, a individual utterly absorbed with the game and wonderfully unconcerned by who knows about it, who finds cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who approaches this quirky game with just the right measure of absurd reverence it requires.

His method paid off. During his intense period – from the instant he appeared to replace a concussed Smith at Lord’s in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game with greater insight. To access it – through absolute focus – on a higher, weirder, more frenzied level. During his time with club cricket, teammates would find him on the morning of a game sitting on a park bench in a meditative condition, literally visualising every single ball of his time at the crease. Per the analytics firm, during the initial period of his career a unusually large proportion of catches were dropped off his bat. Remarkably Labuschagne had anticipated outcomes before fielders could respond to influence it.

Recent Challenges

Perhaps this was why his performance dipped the moment he reached the summit. There were no worlds left to visualise, just a empty space before his eyes. Additionally – he lost faith in his signature shot, got stuck in his crease and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his coach, Neil D’Costa, believes a focus on white-ball cricket started to erode confidence in his alignment. Good news: he’s recently omitted from the 50-over squad.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a strongly faithful person, an committed Christian who thinks that this is all preordained, who thus sees his job as one of accessing this state of flow, despite being puzzling it may appear to the mortal of us.

This mindset, to my mind, has long been the key distinction between him and the other batsman, a more naturally gifted player