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Labuschagne methodically applies butter on both sides of a slice of white bread. “That’s the secret,” he explains as he closes the lid of his grilled cheese press. “Boom. Then you get it golden on each side.” He lifts the lid to reveal a perfectly browned of delicious perfection, the gooey cheese happily sizzling within. “Here’s the key technique,” he explains. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

At this stage, you may feel a glaze of ennui is beginning to form across your eyes. The red lights of sportswriting pretension are flashing wildly. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne scored 160 for Queensland Bulls this week and is being eagerly promoted for an return to the Test side before the Ashes.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about that. But first – you now understand with frustration – you’re going to have to get through several lines of playful digression about toasties, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of overly analytical commentary in the “you” perspective. You sigh again.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a dish and moves toward the fridge. “Few try this,” he announces, “but I actually like the grilled sandwich chilled. Done, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, go bat, come back. Boom. It’s ideal.”

The Cricket Context

Look, here’s the main point. How about we cover the sports aspect to begin with? Quick update 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 in recent months in all formats – feels quietly decisive.

This is an Australian top order clearly missing performance and method, shown up by the Proteas in the World Test Championship final, exposed again in the Caribbean afterwards. Labuschagne was left out during that tour, but on some level you felt Australia were eager to bring him back at the first opportunity. Now he appears to have given them the perfect excuse.

Here is a plan that Australia need to work. Khawaja has just one 100 in his past 44 innings. The young batsman looks not quite a first-innings batsman and more like the good-looking star who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood epic. None of the alternatives has shown convincing form. McSweeney looks cooked. Another option is still surprisingly included, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their skipper, Pat Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this feels like a surprisingly weak team, missing command or stability, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often helped Australia dominate before a ball is bowled.

Labuschagne’s Return

Enter Marnus: a world No 1 Test batter as just two years ago, recently omitted from the one-day team, the right person to bring stability to a brittle empire. And we are told this is a composed and reflective Labuschagne currently: a streamlined, fundamental-focused Labuschagne, no longer as maniacally obsessed with minor adjustments. “I believe I have really simplified things,” he said after his ton. “Not really too technical, just what I should score runs.”

Naturally, few accept this. In all likelihood this is a fresh image that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s own head: still endlessly adjusting that method from dawn to dusk, going further toward simplicity than anyone else would try. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will spend months in the practice sessions with advisors and replays, completely transforming into the simplest player that has ever been seen. This is simply the trait of the obsessed, and the characteristic that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging players in the game.

Bigger Scene

Perhaps before this very open England-Australia contest, there is even a kind of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s endless focus. In England we have a team for whom any kind of analysis, let alone self-analysis, is a risky subject. Feel the flavours. Be where the ball is. Embrace the current.

On the opposite side you have a individual like Labuschagne, a player utterly absorbed with the game and totally indifferent by public perception, who finds cricket even in the gaps in the game, who treats this absurd sport with precisely the amount of absurd reverence it demands.

His method paid off. During his shamanic phase – from the instant he appeared to substitute for an injured Steve Smith at the famous ground in 2019 to around the end of 2022 – Labuschagne found a way to see the game more deeply. To access it – through sheer intensity of will – on a elevated, strange, passionate tier. During his stint in Kent league cricket, colleagues noticed him on the game day resting on a bench in a trance-like state, literally visualising each delivery of his innings. As per the analytics firm, during the early stages of his career a statistically unfathomable catches were dropped off his bat. In some way Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before anyone had a chance to influence it.

Current Struggles

It’s possible this was why his form started to decline the time he achieved top ranking. There were no further goals to picture, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he began doubting his favorite stroke, got stuck in his crease and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his coach, his coach, thinks a focus on white-ball cricket started to weaken assurance in his positioning. Encouragingly: he’s just been dropped from the one-day team.

Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a strongly faithful person, an religious believer who believes that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his task as one of achieving this peak performance, no matter how mysterious it may look to the ordinary people.

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