Three years ago, Matt Renshaw nearly ended up receiving his own Baggy Green as a Christmas gift. Enclosed in a glass box, no less, courtesy his wife, Josie. He agrees that it could have been a lovely gesture, except that it would have been based on a rather significant misunderstanding on her part.
When he was left out of the Australian Test squad in 2023, the Queenslander had informed Josie that he could put the Baggy Green away for good because he wouldn’t need it anymore. It was an offhand comment, mostly in jest, which was clearly taken too literally at face value by his life partner. While it’s since become a running joke in the Renshaw household with the “break glass in case of an emergency” punchline, the 30-year-old left-hander decided to reminisce about it on Saturday in Durban. He couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity for it either.
A truly remarkable day on which he’d produced one of the most significant Test centuries for Australia in the 21st century, apart from it being the most significant innings of his stop-start Test career. One on which, in what is his fourth coming in Test cricket, Renshaw finally found himself as a Test cricketer.
There are times when a Test century can mean so much more than the direct correlation it has to the status of the match itself. And there’s no way of overstating simply how monumental Renshaw’s 190 already is in terms of how it’s turned the first Test in Durban around. Considering how they’ve gone from teetering at 6-124 at the end of the 42nd over to finishing with a total of 390 after having faced 137 overs in all. Not to forget Renshaw’s noteworthy partnerships with Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon, the latter a record-breaking effort that floored the South Africans and may end up having massive ramifications on the remainder of the series.
Renshaw shared a 134-partnership with Lyon ©Getty
But the importance of Renshaw’s first Test century in over 3500 days seemed to go well beyond it being a personal milestone or even its impact on Australia’s position in the current Test match. It rather seemed epochal in many ways. At a time that too when there’s been more pessimism around Australia’s Test batting hopes than ever before. Both from those watching through expert eyes and those supporting it through partisan lenses. Not just with how the current lot are faring but even more so about what lies ahead.
But in a week where five hundreds were scored in the first round of the Sheffield Shield back home, Renshaw, who earned his place back in the side through his exploits in the country’s premier first-class domestic competition, showed that maybe all hope isn’t lost for the traditional artform of long-form batting. This was after all the second-longest Test innings in terms of balls, 397 in all, in the last six years for Australia.
It also proved to be the perfect and most refreshing antidote to overwhelming concerns around Australian cricket over the current crop of batters’ repeated failures to contend with even slightly challenging conditions. In every way possible. Whether it was with regards to Renshaw’s technique, his temperament, his tenacity or most importantly the tempo to his innings. In an era where too often batters have shown the tendency to find ways of rushing through the battle with hopes of finding the escape rather than staying back to fight it, he chose to dig a trench for himself in the line of fire.
This was a highly skilled South African attack that challenged him in various ways, and he’d walked out into a cauldron with Australia completely on the backfoot and the conditions completely in favour of the bowlers. In addition to having only found out the previous day about the late change in his batting position, from opener to No 5.
Renshaw has been very open about the freedom with which he goes about life and the massive changes he’s experienced with his personality in the time since he last was a regular in the Test team. It’s reflected very evidently in his batting too, especially as he’s gone on to taste success in the shorter formats for Australia. And it was the hallmark of his epic here in Durban. From the way he saw off the South African fast bowlers time and time again, getting them to come back at him in subsequent spells, to the very fact that his first intentional boundary through the off-side—a terrific drive off Anrich Nortje past point—wasn’t till he got to his 80s.
Then there was the way he took down Keshav Maharaj with an array of sweep shots to both sides of the wicket, consistently getting the veteran to miss his length, and then picking the left-arm spinner off with even more disdain. And then there was the willingness to get in line with every short delivery that Nortje in particular dished out at him, including the one that he wore on his grille. Through it all, he never once seemed in any hurry to change his approach based on the situation of the match. Even when it came to batting with the tail, providing the perfect blueprint in farming the strike along the way. Renshaw faced 190 of the 282 deliveries in the partnership that he shared with Lyon, the highest ninth wicket partnership for Australia since 1894.
Renshaw unsettled Maharaj with an array of sweeps ©Getty
Australia has seen Renshaw grow up over the last ten years. Or you can argue he’s had to evolve under Australia’s gaze. There was the first glimpse of him as a prodigious baby-faced talent back when he was barely 20 and went on to make 182 against Pakistan. Then came the third go at Test cricket in 2022-23 after the brief tryst in 2018 in the aftermath of the Cape Town fiasco. This was Australia checking in to see if Renshaw had matured enough to finally take to the big stage the way he was destined to. It once again wasn’t to be. There was something about this version of Renshaw though ever since he was given, to some, a rather unexpected call-up to the ODI team last October to face India. Rather than stay back in Brisbane for the start of the Shield season while the opening debate raged on.
There was an air and a way about him that seemed drastically different to what Australian cricket had seen before. Gone was the anxiety-ridden restlessness and the eagerness to fit into the garb of being an international cricketer. This Renshaw seemed ready to accept himself for who he was, and it immediately began showing up in his batting. It’s not to say that he’s ever lost his inherent impishness or the penchant to be a talkative pest for those around him. But this time, it was also being accepted by the dressing-room in more genuine fashion. For, it seemed a lot more genuine. Even if it hasn’t stopped him from trying to take on some of the senior-most members of his team, including Mitchell Starc.
“He’s (Starc) already saying who’s going to be the first person to punch me, but I’m just trying to wind him up at times. But it’s more, I’m so much more comfortable in my skin now that I can be myself and be comfortable with that. Not everyone’s going to like you, and that’s fine,” he’d told Cricbuzz before the start of the Durban Test.
On Saturday, the Australian dressing-room rose as one to greet Renshaw’s special moment, every one of them sporting the toothiest of smiles. But none as wide as the one on the face of the man himself. Renshaw talks about how often he reconnects with the 12-year-old version of himself in his head to remind the adult version of how special he should feel for being able to live his dream of playing cricket at this level. And there was every bit of that 12-year-old on show as he willed the ball towards the mid-wicket boundary to get himself to the three-figure mark.
On a day, the crowning chapter of the Matt Renshaw Test story played out in what now promises to be a page-turner of a Test career. And that glass case can wait. For, his Baggy Green looks set to stay on top of his head for a long time to come still.
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