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Marnus evenly coats butter on the top and bottom of a slice of soft bread. “That’s the secret,” he explains as he closes the lid of his toastie maker. “There you go. Then you get it crisp on each side.” He lifts the lid to reveal a golden square of pure toasted goodness, the bubbling cheese happily bubbling away. “So this is the key technique,” he declares. At which point, he does something shocking and odd.

At this stage, you may feel a sense of disinterest is beginning to form across your eyes. The alarm bells of sportswriting pretension are blinking intensely. You’re likely conscious that Labuschagne hit 160 for his state team this week and is being eagerly promoted for an Australian Test recall before the Ashes series.

No doubt you’d prefer to read more about his performance. But first – you now grasp with irritation – you’re going to have to sit through a section of playful digression about toasted sandwiches, plus an extra unwanted bonus paragraph of overly analytical commentary in the second person. You groan once more.

Labuschagne flips the sandwich on to a plate and walks across the fridge. “Not many people do this,” he remarks, “but I genuinely enjoy the cold toastie. There, in the fridge. You allow the cheese to set, go bat, come back. Boom. Toastie’s ready to go.”

Back to Cricket

Look, let’s try it like this. Shall we get the cricket bit out of the way first? Quick update for your patience. And while there may only be six weeks until the first Test, Labuschagne’s hundred against Tasmania – his third in recent months in various games – feels quietly decisive.

This is an Australian top order clearly missing form and structure, shown up by the Proteas in the WTC final, exposed again in the following Caribbean tour. Labuschagne was left out during that tour, but on some level you gathered Australia were desperate to rehabilitate him at the soonest moment. Now he appears to have given them the perfect excuse.

Here is a approach the team should follow. Khawaja has one century in his past 44 innings. The young batsman looks less like a Test opener and more like the good-looking star who might play a Test opener in a Indian film. No other options has shown convincing form. McSweeney looks cooked. Marcus Harris is still oddly present, like unwanted guests. Meanwhile their skipper, Pat Cummins, is hurt and suddenly this seems like a unusually thin squad, short of command or stability, the kind of natural confidence that has often helped Australia dominate before a match begins.

The Batsman’s Revival

Step forward Marnus: a world No 1 Test batter as in the recent past, recently omitted from the one-day team, the ideal candidate to restore order to a fragile lineup. And we are advised this is a more relaxed and thoughtful Labuschagne these days: a streamlined, back-to-basics Labuschagne, less extremely focused with minor adjustments. “I feel like I’ve really simplified things,” he said after his century. “Not overthinking, just what I must bat effectively.”

Of course, this is doubted. In all likelihood this is a fresh image that exists entirely in Labuschagne’s own head: still endlessly adjusting that technique from all day, going more back to basics than any player has attempted. You want less technical? Marnus will devote weeks in the practice sessions with coaches and video clips, completely transforming into the most basic batsman that has ever played. This is simply the nature of the addict, and the quality that has consistently made Labuschagne one of the most wildly absorbing players in the sport.

Wider Context

Perhaps before this inscrutably unpredictable England-Australia contest, there is even a type of appealing difference to Labuschagne’s unquenchable obsession. In England we have a team for whom any kind of analysis, let alone self-analysis, is a forbidden topic. Feel the flavours. Stay in the moment. Live in the instant.

For Australia you have a batsman like Labuschagne, a player completely dedicated with cricket and wonderfully unconcerned by public perception, who finds cricket even in the spaces between the cricket, who approaches this quirky game with exactly the level of odd devotion it deserves.

His method paid off. During his shamanic phase – from the moment he strode out to replace a concussed Steve Smith at the famous ground in 2019 to around the end of 2022 – Labuschagne found a way to see the game on another level. To tap into it – through pure determination – on a different, unusual, intense plane. During his days playing club cricket, colleagues noticed him on the morning of a game positioned on a seat in a trance-like state, mentally rehearsing each delivery of his innings. According to the analytics firm, during the early stages of his career a unusually large number of chances were spilled from his batting. Remarkably Labuschagne had anticipated outcomes before others could react to change it.

Form Issues

Perhaps this was why his career began to disintegrate the moment he reached the summit. There were no further goals to picture, just a unknown territory before his eyes. Also – to be fair – he stopped trusting his cover drive, got trapped on the crease and seemed to lose awareness of his stumps. But it’s connected really. Meanwhile his trainer, Neil D’Costa, reckons a focus on white-ball cricket started to erode confidence in his alignment. Encouragingly: he’s now excluded from the ODI side.

Surely it matters, too, that Labuschagne is a man of deep religious faith, an religious believer who believes that this is all preordained, who thus sees his role as one of reaching this optimal zone, however enigmatic and inexplicable it may look to the rest of us.

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