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Marnus methodically applies butter on each surface of a slice of plain bread. “That’s essential,” he states as he closes the lid of his grilled cheese press. “There you go. Then you get it golden on the outside.” He opens the grill to reveal a golden square of ideal crispiness, the melted cheese happily sizzling within. “So this is the secret method,” he declares. At which point, he does something horrific and unspeakable.

By now, I sense a layer of boredom is beginning to appear in your eyes. The red lights of overly fancy prose are flashing wildly. You’re no doubt informed that Labuschagne scored 160 for his state team this week and is being widely discussed for an return to the Test side before the Ashes series.

You likely wish to read more about that. But first – you now realise with an anguished sigh – you’re going to have to sit through several lines of light-hearted musing about grilled cheese, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of tiresome meta‑deconstruction in the direct address. You groan once more.

Marnus transfers the sandwich on to a plate and moves toward the fridge. “Few try this,” he remarks, “but I personally prefer the grilled sandwich chilled. Done, in the fridge. You get that cheese to harden up, go bat, come back. Alright. Toastie’s ready to go.”

On-Field Matters

Alright, to cut to the chase. How about we cover the match details initially? Small reward for making it this far. And while there may be just six weeks until the initial match, Labuschagne’s hundred against the Tigers – his third this season in all formats – feels quietly decisive.

We have an Aussie opening batsmen badly short of consistency and technique, exposed by the Proteas in the World Test Championship final, shown up once more in the Caribbean afterwards. Labuschagne was omitted during that trip, but on a certain level you felt Australia were eager to bring him back at the soonest moment. Now he looks to have given them the ideal reason.

Here is a approach the team should follow. Usman Khawaja has one century in his last 44 knocks. The young batsman looks less like a Test opener and closer to the attractive performer who might act as a batsman in a Bollywood movie. Other candidates has presented a strong argument. McSweeney looks cooked. Harris is still oddly present, like moths or damp. Meanwhile their leader, the pace bowler, is unfit and suddenly this appears as a unusually thin squad, lacking authority or balance, the kind of built-in belief that has often helped Australia dominate before a ball is bowled.

Labuschagne’s Return

Here comes Labuschagne: a top-ranked Test batsman as just two years ago, just left out from the ODI side, the right person to restore order to a shaky team. And we are told this is a composed and reflective Labuschagne currently: a simplified, no-frills Labuschagne, less extremely focused with small details. “It seems I’ve really cut out extras,” he said after his hundred. “Not really too technical, just what I must bat effectively.”

Clearly, this is doubted. Most likely this is a new approach that exists only in Labuschagne’s personal view: still constantly refining that method from all day, going more back to basics than any player has attempted. Like basic approach? Marnus will take time in the training with trainers and footage, thoroughly reshaping his game into the least technical batter that has ever been seen. This is just the quality of the focused, and the quality that has always made Labuschagne one of the highly engaging sportsmen in the game.

The Broader Picture

It could be before this very open historic rivalry, there is even a sort of interesting contrast to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. For England we have a side for whom any kind of analysis, let alone self-analysis, is a forbidden topic. Trust your gut. Focus on the present. Embrace the current.

In the other corner you have a player such as Labuschagne, a individual completely dedicated with the sport and wonderfully unconcerned by others’ opinions, who observes cricket even in the moments outside play, who handles this unusual pursuit with just the right measure of odd devotion it deserves.

And it worked. During his focused era – from the moment he strode out to come in for a hurt Steve Smith at Lord’s in 2019 to until late 2022 – Labuschagne was able to see the game more deeply. To reach it – through sheer intensity of will – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his stint in Kent league cricket, fellow players saw him on the day of a match resting on a bench in a meditative condition, literally visualising all balls of his time at the crease. Per the analytics firm, during the initial period of his career a unusually large proportion of catches were dropped off his bat. Remarkably Labuschagne had predicted events before fielders could respond to affect it.

Recent Challenges

Perhaps this was why his form started to decline the time he achieved top ranking. There were no worlds left to visualise, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he lost faith in his cover drive, got trapped on the crease and seemed to forget where his off-stump was. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his mentor, D’Costa, believes a focus on white-ball cricket started to erode confidence in his alignment. Good news: he’s just been dropped from the one-day team.

Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an evangelical Christian who believes that this is all basically written out in advance, who thus sees his task as one of accessing this state of flow, despite being puzzling it may appear to the rest of us.

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