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Labuschagne evenly coats butter on both sides of a slice of white bread. “That’s the secret,” he explains as he lowers the lid of his sandwich grill. “There you go. Then you get it toasted on both sides.” He checks inside to reveal a toasted delight of pure toasted goodness, the melted cheese happily melting inside. “Here’s the secret method,” he explains. At which point, he does something unexpected and strange.

At this stage, you may feel a glaze of ennui is beginning to cover your eyes. The red lights of overly fancy prose are flashing wildly. You’re probably aware that Labuschagne hit 160 for his state team this week and is being feverishly talked up for an return to the Test side before the Ashes series.

You probably want to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to get through a section of light-hearted musing about grilled cheese, plus an further tangential section of tiresome meta‑deconstruction in the “you” perspective. You sigh again.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a dish and heads over the fridge. “Few try this,” he announces, “but I personally prefer the toastie cold. There, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, go bat, come back. Alright. It’s ideal.”

On-Field Matters

Look, let’s try it like this. Shall we get the sports aspect to begin with? Small reward for reading until now. And while there may be just six weeks until the series opener, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against the Tigers – his third of the summer in all formats – feels significantly impactful.

Here’s an Australia top three badly short of form and structure, shown up by the South African team in the Test championship decider, highlighted further in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was left out during that trip, but on some level you felt Australia were keen to restore him at the earliest chance. Now he looks to have given them the ideal reason.

Here is a plan that Australia need to work. Usman Khawaja has just one 100 in his past 44 innings. Konstas looks not quite a Test match opener and more like the good-looking star who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood epic. None of the alternatives has presented a strong argument. Nathan McSweeney looks cooked. Harris is still surprisingly included, like dust or mold. Meanwhile their captain, Pat Cummins, is hurt and suddenly this feels like a surprisingly weak team, lacking authority or balance, the kind of built-in belief that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a ball is bowled.

The Batsman’s Revival

Enter Marnus: a leading Test player as recently as 2023, just left out from the one-day team, the perfect character to bring stability to a shaky team. And we are told this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne currently: a simplified, back-to-basics Labuschagne, less intensely fixated with small details. “It seems I’ve really cut out extras,” he said after his century. “Not really too technical, just what I need to bat effectively.”

Clearly, few accept this. Most likely this is a rebrand that exists only in Labuschagne’s mind: still constantly refining that approach from morning to night, going further toward simplicity than anyone else would try. Like basic approach? Marnus will spend months in the practice sessions with advisors and replays, thoroughly reshaping his game into the most basic batsman that has ever existed. This is simply the nature of the addict, and the quality that has long made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing sportsmen in the cricket.

Wider Context

Maybe before this very open historic rivalry, there is even a sort of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. On England’s side we have a side for whom any kind of analysis, not to mention self-review, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Go with instinct. Focus on the present. Embrace the current.

On the opposite side you have a player such as Labuschagne, a individual completely dedicated with the game and wonderfully unconcerned by public perception, who sees cricket even in the moments outside play, who treats this absurd sport with precisely the amount of quirky respect it demands.

And it worked. During his focused era – from the moment he strode out to replace a concussed the senior batsman at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 2019 to around the end of 2022 – Labuschagne found a way to see the game on another level. To access it – through absolute focus – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his time with club cricket, fellow players saw him on the morning of a game positioned on a seat in a trance-like state, mentally rehearsing all balls of his time at the crease. According to the analytics firm, during the early stages of his career a unusually large proportion of catches were dropped off his bat. Somehow Labuschagne had anticipated outcomes before anyone had a chance to affect it.

Recent Challenges

It’s possible this was why his performance dipped the moment he reached the summit. There were no worlds left to visualise, just a boundless, uncharted void before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he stopped trusting his signature shot, got trapped on the crease and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s part of the same issue. Meanwhile his mentor, his coach, reckons a attention to shorter formats started to undermine belief in his technique. Encouragingly: he’s just been dropped from the ODI side.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a devoutly religious individual, an committed Christian who believes that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his role as one of reaching this optimal zone, despite being puzzling it may look to the ordinary people.

This, to my mind, has consistently been the main point of difference between him and Steve Smith, a inherently talented player