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Marnus evenly coats butter on both sides of a slice of white bread. “That’s essential,” he states as he closes the lid of his toastie maker. “Perfect. Then you get it golden on both sides.” He opens the grill to reveal a perfectly browned of delicious perfection, the melted cheese happily sizzling within. “So this is the key technique,” he announces. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

Already, it’s clear a layer of boredom is beginning to form across your eyes. The red lights of elaborate writing are flashing wildly. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne hit 160 for Queensland Bulls this week and is being widely discussed for an national team comeback before the Ashes series.

You probably want to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now understand with frustration – you’re going to have to endure three paragraphs of playful digression about toasted sandwiches, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of self-referential analysis in the “you” perspective. You sigh again.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a plate and walks across the fridge. “Few try this,” he remarks, “but I personally prefer the toastie cold. There, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, go for a hit, come back. Alright. Toastie’s ready to go.”

The Cricket Context

Look, here’s the main point. How about we cover the cricket bit out of the way first? Small reward for your patience. And while there may still be six weeks until the series opener, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against Tasmania – his third of the summer in all cricket – feels importantly timed.

We have an Aussie opening batsmen badly short of performance and method, shown up by the South African team in the World Test Championship final, exposed again in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was dropped during that trip, but on one hand you felt Australia were keen to restore him at the first opportunity. Now he seems to have given them the ideal reason.

Here is a approach the team should follow. Usman Khawaja has a single hundred in his past 44 innings. The young batsman looks less like a first-innings batsman and more like the attractive performer who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood movie. None of the alternatives has shown convincing form. One contender looks out of form. Another option is still inexplicably hanging around, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their leader, Pat Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this feels like a surprisingly weak team, short of strength or equilibrium, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often helped Australia dominate before a ball is bowled.

Labuschagne’s Return

Here comes Labuschagne: a leading Test player as in the recent past, recently omitted from the ODI side, the ideal candidate to bring stability to a brittle empire. And we are informed this is a composed and reflective Labuschagne now: a pared-down, back-to-basics Labuschagne, no longer as maniacally obsessed with minor adjustments. “It seems I’ve really simplified things,” he said after his ton. “Less focused on technique, just what I must make runs.”

Naturally, this is doubted. Probably this is a rebrand that exists only in Labuschagne’s mind: still furiously stripping down that method from morning to night, going further toward simplicity than anyone has ever dared. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will spend months in the training with advisors and replays, thoroughly reshaping his game into the least technical batter that has ever played. That’s the nature of the addict, and the characteristic that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing players in the game.

Wider Context

It could be before this inscrutably unpredictable historic rivalry, there is even a type of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s endless focus. In England we have a team for whom detailed examination, not to mention self-review, is a forbidden topic. Trust your gut. Be where the ball is. Smell the now.

On the opposite side you have a individual like Labuschagne, a player terminally obsessed with the sport and magnificently unbothered by others’ opinions, who sees cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who treats this absurd sport with exactly the level of odd devotion it demands.

His method paid off. During his shamanic phase – from the time he walked out to replace a concussed the senior batsman at the famous ground in 2019 to around the end of 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game more deeply. To tap into it – through pure determination – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his days playing club cricket, colleagues noticed him on the morning of a game sitting on a park bench in a meditative condition, actually imagining each delivery of his innings. As per Cricviz, during the early stages of his career a statistically unfathomable number of chances were missed when he batted. In some way Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before anyone had a chance to influence it.

Current Struggles

Maybe this was why his form started to decline the time he achieved top ranking. There were no new heights to imagine, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Furthermore – he began doubting his cover drive, got unable to move forward and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his coach, his coach, thinks a emphasis on limited-overs started to erode confidence in his technique. Encouragingly: he’s now excluded from the ODI side.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a devoutly religious individual, an committed Christian who thinks that this is all predetermined, who thus sees his task as one of accessing this state of flow, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may seem to the rest of us.

This, to my mind, has consistently been the main point of difference between him and the other batsman, a instinctive player