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Labuschagne carefully spreads butter on both sides of a slice of white bread. “That’s the secret,” he tells the camera as he brings down the lid of his toastie maker. “Boom. Then you get it toasted on both sides.” He lifts the lid to reveal a toasted delight of pure toasted goodness, the bubbling cheese happily melting inside. “Here’s the trick of the trade,” he announces. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

At this stage, I sense a sense of disinterest is beginning to form across your eyes. The red lights of elaborate writing are blinking intensely. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne made 160 runs for Queensland this week and is being feverishly talked up for an Australian Test recall before the Ashes.

You probably want to read more about cricket matters. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to endure a section of playful digression about grilled cheese, plus an additional unnecessary part of overly analytical commentary in the direct address. You sigh again.

He turns the sandwich on to a dish and heads over the fridge. “It’s uncommon,” he remarks, “but I actually like the toastie cold. Done, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, head to practice, come back. Perfect. It’s ideal.”

Back to Cricket

Okay, to cut to the chase. How about we cover the sports aspect initially? Little treat for reading until now. And while there may still be six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s 100 runs against Tasmania – his third in recent months in all formats – feels importantly timed.

We have an Aussie opening batsmen clearly missing form and structure, shown up by South Africa in the Test championship decider, shown up once more in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was dropped during that trip, but on some level you sensed Australia were eager to bring him back at the earliest chance. Now he appears to have given them the perfect excuse.

This represents a plan that Australia need to work. The opener has a single hundred in his past 44 innings. Konstas looks less like a Test opener and closer to the handsome actor who might play a Test opener in a Bollywood epic. None of the alternatives has presented a strong argument. Nathan McSweeney looks out of form. Marcus Harris is still oddly present, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their leader, Cummins, is hurt and suddenly this feels like a unusually thin squad, short of strength or equilibrium, the kind of built-in belief that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a match begins.

Marnus’s Comeback

Step forward Marnus: a leading Test player as just two years ago, just left out from the one-day team, the perfect character to bring stability to a fragile lineup. And we are told this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne currently: a pared-down, no-frills Labuschagne, less extremely focused with minor adjustments. “I believe I have really cut out extras,” he said after his century. “Not overthinking, just what I need to score runs.”

Naturally, this is doubted. Probably this is a rebrand that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s mind: still furiously stripping down that approach from all day, going deeper into fundamentals than any player has attempted. Like basic approach? Marnus will devote weeks in the nets with trainers and footage, exhaustively remoulding himself into the least technical batter that has ever played. This is simply the quality of the focused, and the quality that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing cricketers in the game.

The Broader Picture

It could be before this highly uncertain Ashes series, there is even a type of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s constant dedication. On England’s side we have a side for whom technical study, especially personal critique, is a kind of dangerous taboo. Trust your gut. Focus on the present. Live in the instant.

In the other corner you have a individual like Labuschagne, a man completely dedicated with the sport and magnificently unbothered by public perception, who observes cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who approaches this quirky game with precisely the amount of absurd reverence it deserves.

This approach succeeded. During his shamanic phase – from the moment he strode out to replace a concussed 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 different, unusual, intense plane. During his days playing club cricket, teammates would find him on the game day positioned on a seat in a focused mindset, actually imagining each delivery of his batting stint. According to Cricviz, during the early stages of his career a unusually large catches were dropped off his bat. Remarkably Labuschagne had intuited what would happen before others could react to influence it.

Recent Challenges

It’s possible this was why his career began to disintegrate the time he achieved top ranking. There were no worlds left to visualise, just a empty space before his eyes. Furthermore – 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 mentor, D’Costa, reckons a attention to shorter formats started to undermine belief in his technique. Good news: he’s recently omitted from the 50-over squad.

No doubt it’s important, too, that Labuschagne is a devoutly religious individual, an religious believer who thinks that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his job as one of achieving this peak performance, despite being puzzling it may seem to the rest of us.

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