Renshaw reigns over Kingsmead as Australia rediscover Test batting

Durban: Test tours of South Africa have often produced unexpected events for the Australian public to wake up to.

That was, of course, the way most discovered sandpaper gate in 2018, but there have also been plenty of others. Greg Blewett and Steve Waugh batting all day in Johannesburg in 1997, then Mark Waugh conjuring a Test victory from nowhere in the next game, at what was then Port Elizabeth.

In 2002, South Africa lost 16 wickets inside a day to end a game that seemed to be lasting at least another 24 hours. And 2009 saw the morning herald remarkable twin centuries for Phillip Hughes, also at Kingsmead.

To that roll call can now be added a monumental innings, 190 in all, from Matt Renshaw, with the help of the touring side’s stout-hearted tail. His innings came nearly a decade after his first hundred, as a doughy 20-year-old at the SCG in 2017, and some years beyond a time when he had started to give up on ever raising the bat again.

“I never thought I’d be here,” he said. “Once I took a few years out of the team, had an opportunity in 2023 and didn’t take it, you probably think that you’re never going to get this opportunity again. When I hit the ball, I was screaming ‘go, go, go’, and it all just hit me at once.”

A first innings total of 390 and an occupation that stretched all the way into the first ball of the final session were most unexpected for cricket watchers who had seen Australia subside to 6-124 on day one.

This was a breakthrough for Renshaw, but also a cathartic experience for teammates and supporters, who revelled in the rediscovery of Test batting’s verities. They came not only in how Renshaw sculpted his innings, but also in his partnerships.

If Australia’s Test cricket had lately been memorable for its big moments, such as those conjured most often by a rampant Travis Head or a rampaging Mitchell Starc, this was a comeback for the many small ones that add up to a quality Test innings or partnership.

Countless were the times Renshaw walked down the wicket to assure or cajole Pat Cummins, Nathan Lyon and Josh Hazlewood, as were the occasions on which he worked thoughtful singles off balls four or five. Having watched the many Australian wickets gifted to Bangladesh in August, or to themselves at Lord’s last year, the Proteas struggled to deal with this level of patience.

After a couple of years playing matches in fast-forward, Australia’s leaders entered this week frank in their admissions that on a drier pitch, their batting had to regain a more grinding quality. This was good in theory, but plenty of spectators had reason to wonder where the ability to bat time would come from.

Renshaw, though, was born for the grind. He made his Test debut at 20 with an anchor innings in a fourth innings chase against South Africa in Adelaide. When he followed that with 184 against Pakistan, then a series of useful innings in India, he looked set to stay at the top.

But as a young adult in a team of older men, Renshaw did not always fit in. He would express opinions when they weren’t always sought, and was still searching for the focus and perspective innate to long-term players. Whether these foibles were enough reason to drop him on the eve of the 2017-18 Ashes is highly debatable, but the decision pushed Renshaw into nearly a decade of growing up without tenure in the team.

Others were tried at the top in between, from Cameron Bancroft and Joe Burns to Marcus Harris, Sam Konstas and Jake Weatherald. Apart from David Warner and Usman Khawaja, none could better Renshaw’s 2016-17 returns, and the arrival of Andrew McDonald as coach and George Bailey as selection chair brought two team principals into agreement about Renshaw’s ability.

It was their confidence in his skills that led ultimately to the left-field decision to switch Renshaw to five, while pressing Nic Maddinson into opening. A difficult commission for Maddinson, it meant that Renshaw occupied a position from which many Australians have prospered, after some sting has gone from the new ball.

From the first, Renshaw looked organised. As the innings went on, he became increasingly inspired. Pace, seam, swing and spin were all handled with sense, whether in defence or attack, and singles were manoeuvred cleverly. While Renshaw put away his pull shot, he unfurled some princely drives, and some wristy leg side flicks that pierced the field with precision.

But it was the presence of mind, the mental stamina, that shone through most.

“That probably comes from that side of me that I know I have,” he said. “I know I can get in the grind if I need to. The conversations today were just ‘try and keep the grind going. We don’t need to rush’.”

There will inevitably be discussions about whether Renshaw should stay at five, or return to opening. But the notion of a selection squeeze should run secondary to the importance of how Renshaw and the lower order rediscovered the serenity of long Test innings – something the balance of the batting order has now seen demonstrated ahead of a year in which many more such stands will be needed.

“It was nice having Gaz down at that other end. I had to calm him down,” Renshaw said. “A few times he got out of his bubble, quite a few big drives, and I walked down,” he said. “I was like, ‘Nathan, let’s just keep going’. He called for gloves one time and just said, ‘yeah, tell Ron [coach McDonald], I’m sorry, that was a bad shot’.”

Renshaw needn’t make any apologies. His innings has set up this match, and it should also calm Australia’s cricketers about assignments ahead. Forget everything else but watching the ball and looking after your batting partner. It can be done.

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