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Marnus methodically applies butter on each surface of a slice of soft bread. “That’s the secret,” he explains as he lowers the lid of his grilled cheese press. “Boom. Then you get it toasted on each side.” He opens the grill to reveal a perfectly browned of ideal crispiness, the gooey cheese happily sizzling within. “And that’s the trick of the trade,” he explains. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

At this stage, 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 made 160 runs for his state team this week and is being eagerly promoted for an national team comeback before the Ashes series.

You probably want to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to sit through three paragraphs of wobbling whimsy about grilled cheese, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of overly analytical commentary in the direct address. You feel resigned.

He turns the sandwich on to a dish and heads over the fridge. “Not many people do this,” he states, “but I personally prefer the cold toastie. Boom, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, go bat, come back. Alright. Sandwich is perfect.”

On-Field Matters

Okay, to cut to the chase. How about we cover the cricket bit initially? Small reward for reading until now. And while there may still be six weeks until the series opener, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against the Tigers – his third in recent months in all cricket – feels significantly impactful.

This is an Aussie opening batsmen clearly missing performance and method, exposed by the South African team in the World Test Championship final, exposed again in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was dropped during that series, but on one hand you sensed 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 a single hundred in his last 44 knocks. The young batsman looks not quite a Test opener and more like the good-looking star who might portray a cricketer in a Bollywood epic. Other candidates has shown convincing form. Nathan McSweeney looks cooked. Harris is still oddly present, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their skipper, Cummins, is injured and suddenly this seems like a surprisingly weak team, short of command or stability, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a game starts.

Marnus’s Comeback

Here comes Labuschagne: a leading Test player as in the recent past, freshly dropped from the one-day team, the right person to return structure to a brittle empire. And we are advised this is a composed and reflective Labuschagne these days: a pared-down, back-to-basics Labuschagne, no longer as intensely fixated with technical minutiae. “It seems I’ve really stripped it back,” he said after his ton. “Not really too technical, just what I must score runs.”

Clearly, few accept this. Most likely this is a rebrand that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s own head: still constantly refining that approach from morning to night, going further toward simplicity than any player has attempted. Like basic approach? Marnus will spend months in the nets with trainers and footage, thoroughly reshaping his game into the least technical batter that has ever existed. This is simply the trait of the obsessed, and the characteristic that has always made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing cricketers in the sport.

The Broader Picture

Maybe before this very open England-Australia contest, there is even a type of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s endless focus. In England we have a team for whom any kind of analysis, not to mention self-review, is a forbidden topic. Go with instinct. Focus on the present. Smell the now.

In the other corner you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a individual utterly absorbed with cricket and magnificently unbothered by who knows about it, who finds cricket even in the gaps in the game, who handles this unusual pursuit with precisely the amount of odd devotion it demands.

His method paid off. During his shamanic phase – from the moment he strode out to replace a concussed Steve Smith at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game on another level. To reach it – through pure determination – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his time with Kent league cricket, teammates would find him on the day of a match positioned on a seat in a focused mindset, actually imagining every single ball of his batting stint. Per cricket statisticians, during the early stages of his career a surprisingly high proportion of catches were dropped off his bat. In some way Labuschagne had predicted events before fielders could respond to affect it.

Form Issues

Maybe this was why his form started to decline the moment he reached the summit. There were no further goals to picture, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he stopped trusting his signature shot, got unable to move forward and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his trainer, his coach, believes a focus on white-ball cricket started to undermine belief in his technique. Good news: he’s now excluded from the 50-over squad.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an evangelical Christian who thinks that this is all preordained, who thus sees his job as one of reaching this optimal zone, no matter how mysterious it may appear to the rest of us.

This approach, to my mind, has always been the primary contrast between him and the other batsman, a more naturally gifted player