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The Australian batsman evenly coats butter on the top and bottom of a slice of white bread. “That’s the key,” he explains as he lowers the lid of his sandwich grill. “There you go. Then you get it toasted on the outside.” He lifts the lid to reveal a toasted delight of ideal crispiness, the melted cheese happily bubbling away. “And that’s the trick of the trade,” he announces. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

By now, I sense a layer of boredom is beginning to cover your eyes. The alarm bells of sportswriting pretension are blinking intensely. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne hit 160 for Queensland this week and is being feverishly talked up for an return to the Test side before the England-Australia contest.

You probably want to read more about his performance. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to endure a section of wobbling whimsy about toasted sandwiches, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of self-referential analysis in the direct address. You sigh again.

He turns the sandwich on to a plate and walks across the fridge. “Few try this,” he announces, “but I actually like the grilled sandwich chilled. Done, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, head to practice, come back. Alright. It’s ideal.”

The Cricket Context

Look, let’s try it like this. How about we cover the cricket bit to begin with? Little treat for making it this far. And while there may only be six weeks until the series opener, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against the Tigers – his third of the summer in various games – feels importantly timed.

We have an Australia top three clearly missing performance and method, exposed by the South African team in the World Test Championship final, highlighted further in the Caribbean afterwards. Labuschagne was omitted during that tour, but on some level you sensed Australia were keen to restore him at the soonest moment. Now he seems to have given them the ideal reason.

And this is a plan that Australia need to work. Usman Khawaja has one century in his past 44 innings. The young batsman looks less like a first-innings batsman and closer to the handsome actor who might play a Test opener in a Indian film. Other candidates has presented a strong argument. One contender 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 surprisingly weak team, missing command or stability, the kind of built-in belief that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a match begins.

Labuschagne’s Return

Here comes Labuschagne: 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 informed this is a composed and reflective Labuschagne currently: a streamlined, no-frills Labuschagne, less intensely fixated with technical minutiae. “I believe I have really simplified things,” he said after his hundred. “Not overthinking, just what I must make runs.”

Of course, few accept this. In all likelihood this is a fresh image that exists just in Labuschagne’s personal view: still furiously stripping down that approach from morning to night, going more back to basics than any player has attempted. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will take time in the nets with coaches and video clips, exhaustively remoulding himself into the simplest player that has ever been seen. This is simply the trait of the obsessed, and the trait that has long made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing cricketers in the sport.

Wider Context

Perhaps before this very open Ashes series, there is even a type of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s endless focus. For England we have a side for whom technical study, not to mention self-review, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Go with instinct. Focus on the present. Smell the now.

For Australia you have a player such as Labuschagne, a man completely dedicated with the game and magnificently unbothered by who knows about it, who finds cricket even in the moments outside play, who handles this unusual pursuit with just the right measure of odd devotion it demands.

And it worked. During his focused era – from the instant he appeared to replace a concussed the senior batsman at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne somehow managed to see the game with greater insight. To tap into it – through absolute focus – on a higher, weirder, more frenzied level. During his stint in Kent league cricket, fellow players saw him on the morning of a game positioned on a seat in a meditative condition, mentally rehearsing each delivery of his batting stint. Per Cricviz, during the first few years of his career a statistically unfathomable catches were spilled from his batting. Remarkably Labuschagne had anticipated outcomes before anyone had a chance to change it.

Current Struggles

It’s possible this was why his form started to decline the time he achieved top ranking. There were no worlds left to visualise, 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, Neil D’Costa, believes a focus on white-ball cricket started to erode confidence in his technique. Encouragingly: he’s recently omitted from the 50-over squad.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a devoutly religious individual, an religious believer who believes that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his role as one of accessing this state of flow, no matter how mysterious it may appear to the mortal of us.

This, to my mind, has long been the primary contrast between him and Smith, a more naturally gifted player