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Marnus evenly coats butter on each surface of a slice of soft bread. “That’s the key,” he explains as he closes the lid of his toastie maker. “Boom. Then you get it toasted on both sides.” He opens the grill to reveal a golden square of pure toasted goodness, the melted cheese happily melting inside. “And that’s the secret method,” he declares. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

At this stage, I sense a glaze of ennui is beginning to appear in your eyes. The red lights of sportswriting pretension are blinking intensely. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne hit 160 for Queensland this week and is being feverishly talked up for an return to the Test side before the Ashes.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to get through a section of wobbling whimsy about toasties, plus an additional unnecessary part of overly analytical commentary in the “you” perspective. You groan once more.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a dish and heads over the fridge. “Not many people do this,” he remarks, “but I actually like the toastie cold. Done, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, go bat, come back. Alright. Sandwich is perfect.”

Back to Cricket

Look, to cut to the chase. Let’s address the match details initially? Small reward for reading until now. And while there may be just six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s century against Tasmania – his third in recent months in various games – feels quietly decisive.

Here’s an Aussie opening batsmen seriously lacking form and structure, revealed against 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 a certain level you gathered Australia were desperate to rehabilitate him at the earliest chance. Now he appears to have given them the perfect excuse.

Here is a strategy Australia must implement. The opener has a single hundred in his past 44 innings. The young batsman looks not quite a Test match opener and rather like the handsome actor who might portray a cricketer in a Bollywood epic. None of the alternatives has made a cogent case. One contender looks out of form. Marcus Harris is still inexplicably hanging around, like dust or mold. Meanwhile their skipper, the pace bowler, is injured and suddenly this feels like a surprisingly weak team, short of authority or balance, the kind of natural confidence that has often helped Australia dominate before a match begins.

Labuschagne’s Return

Here comes Labuschagne: a top-ranked Test batsman as in the recent past, freshly dropped from the 50-over squad, the perfect character to return structure to a fragile lineup. And we are advised this is a composed and reflective Labuschagne now: a streamlined, back-to-basics Labuschagne, no longer as maniacally obsessed with small details. “It seems I’ve really simplified things,” he said after his hundred. “Less focused on technique, just what I must make runs.”

Clearly, this is doubted. Probably this is a new approach that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s personal view: still endlessly adjusting that technique from all day, going more back to basics than anyone has ever dared. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will take time in the practice sessions with trainers and footage, exhaustively remoulding himself into the most basic batsman that has ever played. This is just the trait of the obsessed, and the characteristic that has long made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating cricketers in the sport.

Bigger Scene

It could be before this very open historic rivalry, there is even a kind of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s constant dedication. On England’s side we have a side for whom detailed examination, let alone self-analysis, is a risky subject. Trust your gut. Focus on the present. Embrace the current.

In the other corner you have a individual like Labuschagne, a man terminally obsessed with cricket and totally indifferent by others’ opinions, who sees cricket even in the moments outside play, who handles this unusual pursuit with just the right measure of odd devotion it demands.

This approach succeeded. During his intense period – from the time he walked out to substitute for an injured the senior batsman at Lord’s in 2019 to around the end of 2022 – Labuschagne found a way to see the game on another level. To reach it – through pure determination – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his days playing English county cricket, teammates would find him on the game day positioned on a seat in a meditative condition, actually imagining every single ball 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 missed when he batted. Somehow Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before anyone had a chance to change it.

Current Struggles

Perhaps this was why his form started to decline the time he achieved top ranking. There were no worlds left to visualise, just a empty space before his eyes. Furthermore – he stopped trusting his signature shot, got stuck in his crease and seemed to misjudge his positioning. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his mentor, Neil D’Costa, thinks a attention to shorter formats started to weaken assurance in his alignment. Encouragingly: he’s just been dropped from the one-day team.

Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a strongly faithful person, an evangelical Christian who believes that this is all preordained, who thus sees his task as one of reaching this optimal zone, despite being puzzling it may appear to the ordinary people.

This approach, to my mind, has always been the key distinction between him and the other batsman, a inherently talented player