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Labuschagne evenly coats butter on each surface of a slice of soft bread. “That’s essential,” he explains as he brings down the lid of his grilled cheese press. “There you go. Then you get it crisp on the outside.” He checks inside to reveal a golden square of ideal crispiness, the melted cheese happily bubbling away. “So this is the trick of the trade,” he announces. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

At this stage, you may feel a layer of boredom is beginning to form across your eyes. The alarm bells of sportswriting pretension are blinking intensely. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne scored 160 for Queensland this week and is being feverishly talked up for an return to the Test side before the England-Australia contest.

You likely wish to read more about that. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to sit through three paragraphs of light-hearted musing about toasties, plus an additional unnecessary part of overly analytical commentary in the direct address. You feel resigned.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a dish and moves toward the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he remarks, “but I personally prefer the grilled sandwich chilled. Done, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, head to practice, come back. Alright. Toastie’s ready to go.”

On-Field Matters

Look, here’s the main point. How about we cover the cricket bit initially? Quick update for your patience. And while there may only be six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s century against the Tigers – his third of the summer in all cricket – feels quietly decisive.

Here’s an Aussie opening batsmen seriously lacking form and structure, exposed by South Africa in the WTC final, highlighted further in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was omitted during that trip, but on some level you gathered Australia were desperate to rehabilitate him at the soonest moment. Now he seems to have given them the right opportunity.

This represents a plan that Australia need to work. Usman Khawaja has just one 100 in his recent 44 batting efforts. Sam Konstas looks hardly a first-innings batsman and more like the attractive performer who might play a Test opener in a Indian film. Other candidates has presented a strong argument. Nathan McSweeney looks finished. Marcus Harris is still inexplicably hanging around, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their skipper, the pace bowler, is unfit and suddenly this feels like a unusually thin squad, lacking command or stability, the kind of natural confidence that has often given Australia a lead before a game starts.

The Batsman’s Revival

Step forward Marnus: a top-ranked Test batsman as recently as 2023, just left out from the ODI side, the perfect character to bring stability to a brittle empire. And we are told this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne these days: a simplified, back-to-basics Labuschagne, no longer as extremely focused with minor adjustments. “It seems I’ve really simplified things,” he said after his ton. “Less focused on technique, just what I need to score runs.”

Of course, this is doubted. Most likely this is a new approach that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s personal view: still furiously stripping down that approach from dawn to dusk, going more back to basics than anyone has ever dared. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will take time in the practice sessions with coaches and video clips, exhaustively remoulding himself into the simplest player that has ever been seen. This is just the trait of the obsessed, and the quality that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging players in the cricket.

Wider Context

Perhaps before this highly uncertain historic rivalry, there is even a sort of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s endless focus. For England we have a team for whom detailed examination, especially personal critique, is a forbidden topic. Go with instinct. Be where the ball is. Embrace the current.

In the other corner you have a player such as Labuschagne, a man terminally obsessed with cricket and magnificently unbothered by who knows about it, who observes cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who approaches this quirky game with precisely the amount of odd devotion it requires.

And it worked. During his intense period – from the moment he strode out to come in for a hurt Smith at Lord’s in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game on another level. To reach it – through pure determination – on a elevated, strange, passionate tier. During his time with English county cricket, colleagues noticed him on the day of a match sitting on a park bench in a trance-like state, actually imagining each delivery of his time at the crease. Per cricket statisticians, during the first few years of his career a unusually large catches were dropped off his bat. In some way Labuschagne had anticipated outcomes before fielders could respond to change it.

Recent Challenges

Maybe this was why his career began to disintegrate the moment he reached the summit. There were no new heights to imagine, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Additionally – he stopped trusting his cover drive, got unable to move forward and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his trainer, his coach, reckons a focus on white-ball cricket started to erode confidence in his alignment. Positive development: he’s just been dropped from the ODI side.

Certainly it’s relevant, too, that Labuschagne is a devoutly religious individual, an evangelical Christian who holds that this is all preordained, who thus sees his role as one of reaching this optimal zone, no matter how mysterious it may appear to the rest of us.

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