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The Australian batsman methodically applies butter on both sides of a slice of white bread. “That’s the secret,” he explains as he lowers the lid of his grilled cheese press. “There you go. Then you get it crisp on the outside.” He lifts the lid to reveal a golden square of ideal crispiness, the gooey cheese happily melting inside. “So this is the secret method,” he announces. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

By now, it’s clear a layer of boredom is beginning to form across your eyes. The warning signs of overly fancy prose are going off. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne made 160 runs for Queensland this week and is being eagerly promoted for an national team comeback before the Ashes series.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about his performance. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to get through several lines of playful digression about toasted sandwiches, plus an further tangential section 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. “Not many people do this,” he remarks, “but I genuinely enjoy the grilled sandwich chilled. There, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, go bat, come back. Alright. Toastie’s ready to go.”

Back to Cricket

Okay, let’s try it like this. Let’s address the cricket bit initially? Quick update for your patience. And while there may be just six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s hundred against the Tasmanian side – his third in recent months in various games – feels significantly impactful.

We have an Australia top three seriously lacking 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 trip, but on some level you sensed Australia were eager to bring him back at the first opportunity. Now he looks to have given them the right opportunity.

This represents a strategy Australia must implement. Khawaja has a single hundred in his past 44 innings. Konstas looks not quite a Test match opener and more like the good-looking star who might play a Test opener in a Bollywood epic. None of the alternatives has made a cogent case. Nathan McSweeney looks finished. Harris is still inexplicably hanging around, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their leader, the pace bowler, is unfit and suddenly this appears as a weirdly lightweight side, missing authority or balance, the kind of built-in belief that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a game starts.

Marnus’s Comeback

Here comes Labuschagne: a top-ranked Test batsman as just two years ago, recently omitted from the one-day team, the ideal candidate to return structure to a brittle empire. And we are advised this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne currently: a simplified, back-to-basics Labuschagne, not as extremely focused with minor adjustments. “I believe I have really stripped it back,” he said after his ton. “Not really too technical, just what I should bat effectively.”

Of course, this is doubted. Most likely this is a rebrand that exists only in Labuschagne’s own head: still endlessly adjusting that approach from all day, going deeper into fundamentals than anyone else would try. Like basic approach? Marnus will take time in the nets with coaches and video clips, completely transforming into the most basic batsman that has ever played. This is just the nature of the addict, and the quality that has always made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing sportsmen in the game.

The Broader Picture

Perhaps before this very open Ashes series, there is even a type of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. For England we have a side for whom technical study, not to mention self-review, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Feel the flavours. Focus on the present. Live in the instant.

In the other corner you have a player such as Labuschagne, a man completely dedicated with the game and wonderfully unconcerned by public perception, who finds cricket even in the moments outside play, who handles this unusual pursuit with just the right measure of quirky respect it demands.

And it worked. During his shamanic phase – from the time he walked out to substitute for an injured Smith at the famous ground in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne found a way to see the game on another level. To tap into it – through sheer intensity of will – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his days playing club cricket, colleagues noticed him on the day of a match positioned on a seat in a meditative condition, actually imagining all balls of his innings. According to Cricviz, during the first few years of his career a statistically unfathomable number of chances were spilled from his batting. In some way Labuschagne had predicted events before others could react to affect it.

Form Issues

Perhaps this was why his form started to decline the point he became number one. There were no new heights to imagine, just a empty space before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he stopped trusting his cover drive, got unable to move forward and seemed to misjudge his positioning. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his coach, his coach, believes a emphasis on limited-overs started to erode confidence in his positioning. Good news: he’s now excluded from the ODI side.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an evangelical Christian who believes that this is all predetermined, who thus sees his task as one of achieving this peak performance, no matter how mysterious it may appear to the mortal of us.

This approach, to my mind, has long been the primary contrast between him and Smith, a inherently talented player