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Marnus methodically applies butter on the top and bottom of a slice of white bread. “That’s the secret,” he explains as he lowers the lid of his sandwich grill. “Boom. Then you get it crisp on the outside.” He opens the grill to reveal a perfectly browned of ideal crispiness, the melted cheese happily sizzling within. “And that’s the trick of the trade,” he announces. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

Already, it’s clear a glaze of ennui is beginning to form across your eyes. The alarm bells of overly fancy prose are blinking intensely. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne scored 160 for Queensland this week and is being eagerly promoted for an national team comeback before the England-Australia contest.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about that. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to sit through several lines of light-hearted musing about toasties, plus an additional unnecessary part of overly analytical commentary in the second person. You sigh again.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a plate and moves toward the fridge. “Few try this,” he remarks, “but I actually like the grilled sandwich chilled. Done, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, go bat, come back. Perfect. Sandwich is perfect.”

On-Field Matters

Okay, let’s try it like this. Let’s address the cricket bit to begin with? Quick update for your patience. And while there may only be six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against the Tasmanian side – his third in recent months in various games – feels quietly decisive.

We have an Aussie opening batsmen clearly missing form and structure, revealed against the Proteas in the WTC final, highlighted further in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was omitted during that series, but on one hand you felt Australia were keen to restore him at the earliest chance. Now he appears to have given them the right opportunity.

And this is a plan that Australia need to work. Khawaja has just one 100 in his past 44 innings. Konstas looks less like a Test opener and more like the attractive performer who might play a Test opener in a Bollywood movie. No other options has presented a strong argument. McSweeney looks cooked. Another option is still inexplicably hanging around, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their skipper, Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this feels like a weirdly lightweight side, missing strength or equilibrium, the kind of built-in belief that has often helped Australia dominate before a ball is bowled.

Marnus’s Comeback

Enter Marnus: a leading Test player as just two years ago, recently omitted from the one-day team, the perfect character to restore order to a brittle empire. And we are told this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne currently: a pared-down, no-frills Labuschagne, no longer as maniacally obsessed with technical minutiae. “I believe I have really stripped it back,” he said after his ton. “Less focused on technique, just what I must make runs.”

Of course, nobody truly believes this. Probably this is a rebrand that exists only in Labuschagne’s mind: still constantly refining that method from morning to night, going more back to basics than anyone else would try. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will devote weeks in the nets with advisors and replays, exhaustively remoulding himself into the least technical batter that has ever existed. This is just the quality of the focused, and the trait that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating players in the cricket.

Wider Context

Perhaps before this highly uncertain historic rivalry, there is even a kind of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s endless focus. For England we have a squad for whom detailed examination, let alone self-analysis, is a forbidden topic. Go with instinct. Stay in the moment. Live in the instant.

On the opposite side you have a player such as Labuschagne, a player completely dedicated with cricket and totally indifferent by public perception, who observes cricket even in the gaps in the game, who treats this absurd sport with exactly the level of quirky respect it requires.

And it worked. During his shamanic phase – from the moment he strode out to substitute for an injured the senior batsman at Lord’s in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game more deeply. To access it – through absolute focus – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his stint in club cricket, teammates would find him on the game day positioned on a seat in a trance-like state, mentally rehearsing all balls of his time at the crease. As per the analytics firm, during the initial period of his career a surprisingly high proportion of catches were dropped off his bat. Remarkably Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before fielders could respond to affect it.

Form Issues

Maybe this was why his performance dipped the point he became number one. There were no new heights to imagine, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Additionally – he lost faith in his cover drive, got unable to move forward and seemed to misjudge his positioning. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his trainer, his coach, thinks a emphasis on limited-overs started to weaken assurance in his technique. Good news: he’s recently omitted from the one-day team.

Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a devoutly religious individual, an committed Christian who holds that this is all preordained, who thus sees his job as one of accessing this state of flow, no matter how mysterious it may appear to the rest of us.

This approach, to my mind, has consistently been the main point of difference between him and the other batsman, a instinctive player