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Marnus evenly coats butter on the top and bottom of a slice of white bread. “That’s the key,” he tells the camera as he closes the lid of his toastie maker. “Boom. Then you get it toasted on both sides.” He checks inside to reveal a golden square of pure toasted goodness, the gooey cheese happily melting inside. “And that’s the trick of the trade,” he announces. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

Already, I sense a glaze of ennui is beginning to form across your eyes. The warning signs of sportswriting pretension are flashing wildly. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne scored 160 for Queensland this week and is being eagerly promoted for an national team comeback before the Ashes.

You probably want to read more about his performance. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to endure several lines of wobbling whimsy about toasties, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of overly analytical commentary in the second person. You feel resigned.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a dish and walks across the fridge. “Few try this,” he states, “but I genuinely enjoy the cold toastie. There, in the fridge. You let the cheese firm up, head to practice, come back. Perfect. It’s ideal.”

On-Field Matters

Look, here’s the main point. Shall we get the match details initially? Small reward for making it this far. And while there may still be six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s hundred against the Tigers – his third of the summer in various games – feels importantly timed.

Here’s an Australia top three badly short of performance and method, shown up by South Africa in the WTC final, exposed again in the West Indies after that. Labuschagne was left out during that trip, but on a certain level you gathered Australia were keen to restore him at the first opportunity. Now he appears to have given them the perfect excuse.

This represents a strategy Australia must implement. Usman Khawaja has just one 100 in his past 44 innings. Konstas looks not quite a Test opener and rather like the good-looking star who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood epic. Other candidates has presented a strong argument. One contender looks finished. Harris is still oddly present, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their captain, Cummins, is injured and suddenly this feels like a unusually thin squad, lacking authority or balance, the kind of effortless self-assurance that has often put Australia 2-0 up before a ball is bowled.

The Batsman’s Revival

Enter Marnus: a leading Test player as in the recent past, freshly dropped from the 50-over squad, the right person to return structure to a fragile lineup. And we are informed this is a calmer and more meditative Labuschagne currently: a streamlined, back-to-basics Labuschagne, not as extremely focused with technical minutiae. “It seems I’ve really stripped it back,” he said after his century. “Not overthinking, just what I need to bat effectively.”

Clearly, this is doubted. Most likely this is a rebrand that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s personal view: still constantly refining that method from dawn to dusk, going deeper into fundamentals than anyone else would try. You want less technical? Marnus will devote weeks in the nets with coaches and video clips, completely transforming into the least technical batter that has ever existed. This is just the nature of the addict, and the quality that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging cricketers in the cricket.

Bigger Scene

Maybe before this inscrutably unpredictable Ashes series, there is even a kind of pleasing dissonance to Labuschagne’s constant dedication. In 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. Live in the instant.

For Australia you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a player terminally obsessed with cricket and magnificently unbothered by who knows about it, who observes cricket even in the gaps in the game, who approaches this quirky game with precisely the amount of absurd reverence it demands.

His method paid off. During his focused era – from the time he walked out to replace a concussed the senior batsman at Lord’s in 2019 to until late 2022 – Labuschagne somehow managed to see the game on another level. To tap into it – through sheer intensity of will – on a higher, weirder, more frenzied level. During his stint in club cricket, fellow players saw him on the day of a match resting on a bench in a meditative condition, mentally rehearsing every single ball of his innings. Per Cricviz, during the initial period of his career a surprisingly high proportion of catches were dropped off his bat. Somehow Labuschagne had predicted events before others could react to influence it.

Recent Challenges

Maybe 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. Additionally – he stopped trusting his cover drive, got stuck in his crease and seemed to misjudge his positioning. But it’s all the same thing. Meanwhile his mentor, Neil D’Costa, believes a attention to shorter formats started to erode confidence in his positioning. Good news: he’s recently omitted from the ODI side.

Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a strongly faithful person, an religious believer who believes that this is all preordained, who thus sees his job as one of reaching this optimal zone, despite being puzzling it may appear to the rest of us.

This approach, to my mind, has always been the main point of difference between him and Steve Smith, a instinctive player