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Marnus evenly coats butter on the top and bottom of a slice of plain bread. “That’s the key,” he tells the camera as he lowers the lid of his toastie maker. “Boom. Then you get it golden on each side.” He lifts the lid to reveal a golden square of delicious perfection, the bubbling cheese happily bubbling away. “Here’s the key technique,” he explains. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

By now, it’s clear a sense of disinterest is beginning to appear in your eyes. The alarm bells of elaborate writing are blinking intensely. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne scored 160 for his state team this week and is being widely discussed for an national team comeback before the Ashes series.

You probably want to read more about his performance. But first – you now understand with frustration – you’re going to have to endure several lines of playful digression about toasted sandwiches, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of self-referential analysis in the second person. You feel resigned.

He turns the sandwich on to a plate and walks across the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he announces, “but I genuinely enjoy the cold toastie. There, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, head to practice, come back. Alright. Toastie’s ready to go.”

Back to Cricket

Look, to cut to the chase. How about we cover the match details out of the way first? Small reward for making it this far. And while there may be just six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against the Tasmanian side – his third this season in all cricket – feels significantly impactful.

This is an Aussie opening batsmen clearly missing consistency and technique, shown up by the South African team in the WTC final, shown up once more in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was omitted during that tour, but on a certain level you gathered Australia were eager to bring him back at the first opportunity. Now he looks to have given them the ideal reason.

Here is a plan that Australia need to work. Khawaja has one century in his recent 44 batting efforts. Sam Konstas looks less like a Test opener and more like the handsome actor who might play a Test opener in a Indian film. None of the alternatives has made a cogent case. McSweeney looks finished. Another option is still oddly present, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their captain, Cummins, is unfit and suddenly this seems like a weirdly lightweight side, lacking strength or equilibrium, the kind of natural confidence that has often helped Australia dominate before a match begins.

Marnus’s Comeback

Enter Marnus: a world No 1 Test batter as recently as 2023, freshly dropped from the 50-over squad, the perfect character to bring stability to a brittle empire. And we are informed this is a composed and reflective Labuschagne now: a streamlined, no-frills Labuschagne, no longer as maniacally obsessed with small details. “It seems I’ve really simplified things,” he said after his century. “Not really too technical, just what I should bat effectively.”

Of course, this is doubted. Probably this is a rebrand that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s own head: still furiously stripping down that technique from dawn to dusk, going further toward simplicity than anyone has ever dared. Prefer simplicity? Marnus will spend months in the practice sessions with coaches and video clips, completely transforming into the least technical batter that has ever existed. This is simply the nature of the addict, and the characteristic that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the deeply fascinating sportsmen in the sport.

Wider Context

Maybe before this very open historic rivalry, there is even a type of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s endless focus. For England we have a team for whom technical study, not to mention self-review, is a forbidden topic. Go with instinct. Be where the ball is. Smell the now.

On the opposite side you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a man terminally obsessed with cricket and magnificently unbothered by who knows about it, who finds cricket even in the gaps in the game, who approaches this quirky game with exactly the level of absurd reverence it demands.

And it worked. During his focused era – from the instant he appeared to replace a concussed Steve Smith at Lord’s in 2019 to through 2022 – Labuschagne found a way to see the game with greater insight. To access it – through pure determination – on a higher, weirder, more frenzied level. During his stint in Kent league cricket, colleagues noticed him on the game day resting on a bench in a trance-like state, mentally rehearsing all balls of his time at the crease. According to Cricviz, during the initial period of his career a unusually large catches were spilled from his batting. In some way Labuschagne had anticipated outcomes before fielders could respond to influence it.

Form Issues

Perhaps this was why his career began to disintegrate the time he achieved top ranking. There were no further goals to picture, just a empty space before his eyes. Additionally – he lost faith in his signature shot, got stuck in his crease and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his trainer, D’Costa, thinks a emphasis on limited-overs started to undermine belief in his positioning. Encouragingly: he’s just been dropped from the 50-over squad.

Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an committed Christian who thinks that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his job as one of accessing this state of flow, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may seem to the mortal of us.

This, to my mind, has consistently been the key distinction between him and Smith, a inherently talented player