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The Australian batsman evenly coats butter on both sides of a slice of soft bread. “That’s essential,” he explains as he brings down the lid of his toastie maker. “Boom. Then you get it toasted on both sides.” He lifts the lid to reveal a golden square of ideal crispiness, the melted cheese happily bubbling away. “And that’s the secret method,” he announces. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

By now, you may feel a glaze of ennui is beginning to form across your eyes. The red lights of elaborate writing are going off. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne scored 160 for Queensland Bulls this week and is being feverishly talked up for an return to the Test side before the Ashes.

You likely wish to read more about that. But first – you now understand with frustration – you’re going to have to endure a section of playful digression about toasties, plus an further tangential section of self-referential analysis in the second person. You sigh again.

He turns the sandwich on to a serving plate and heads over the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he states, “but I genuinely enjoy the toastie cold. Boom, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, go for a hit, come back. Boom. Sandwich is perfect.”

On-Field Matters

Okay, let’s try it like this. Shall we get the sports aspect out of the way first? Small reward for reading until now. And while there may only be six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s hundred against Tasmania – his third of the summer in various games – feels significantly impactful.

Here’s an Aussie opening batsmen badly short of consistency and technique, exposed by South Africa in the WTC final, highlighted further in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was left out during that tour, but on some level you sensed Australia were desperate to rehabilitate him at the earliest chance. Now he looks to have given them the perfect excuse.

And this is a plan that Australia need to work. Khawaja has just one 100 in his recent 44 batting efforts. Konstas looks hardly a Test opener and closer to the handsome actor who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood movie. Other candidates has presented a strong argument. Nathan McSweeney looks cooked. Another option is still oddly present, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their captain, the pace bowler, is hurt and suddenly this appears as a unusually thin squad, missing strength or equilibrium, the kind of built-in belief that has often given Australia a lead before a match begins.

Marnus’s Comeback

Step forward Marnus: a world No 1 Test batter as recently as 2023, just left out from the 50-over squad, the ideal candidate to restore order to a brittle empire. And we are informed this is a composed and reflective Labuschagne currently: a pared-down, back-to-basics Labuschagne, less extremely focused with minor adjustments. “It seems I’ve really stripped it back,” he said after his century. “Less focused on technique, just what I need to score runs.”

Naturally, nobody truly believes this. In all likelihood this is a new approach that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s personal view: still furiously stripping down that approach from dawn to dusk, going further toward simplicity than anyone else would try. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will spend months in the nets with advisors and replays, thoroughly reshaping his game into the most basic batsman that has ever existed. This is just the nature of the addict, and the quality that has long made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging players in the game.

The Broader Picture

Perhaps before this very open historic rivalry, there is even a kind of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. In England we have a team for whom detailed examination, especially personal critique, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Go with instinct. Stay in the moment. Live in the instant.

For Australia you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a individual utterly absorbed with the game and wonderfully unconcerned by public perception, who observes cricket even in the gaps in the game, who approaches this quirky game with precisely the amount of odd devotion it requires.

This approach succeeded. During his intense period – from the time he walked out to substitute for an injured Smith at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 2019 to around the end of 2022 – Labuschagne somehow managed to see the game more deeply. To tap into it – through sheer intensity of will – on a higher, weirder, more frenzied level. During his time with Kent league cricket, colleagues noticed him on the morning of a game sitting on a park bench in a focused mindset, actually imagining all balls of his time at the crease. As per cricket statisticians, during the initial period of his career a unusually large proportion of catches were missed when he batted. Somehow Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before others could react to influence it.

Recent Challenges

Perhaps this was why his career began to disintegrate the time he achieved top ranking. There were no new heights to imagine, just a empty space before his eyes. Furthermore – he began doubting his cover drive, got stuck in his crease and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his coach, his coach, believes a emphasis on limited-overs started to undermine belief in his alignment. Good news: he’s now excluded from the ODI side.

Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an committed Christian who holds that this is all predetermined, who thus sees his job as one of accessing this state of flow, despite being puzzling it may appear to the rest of us.

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