Matt Renshaw pushes for Australia Test place saying I can adapt to any situation

Matt Renshaw believes his versatility and new white-ball mindset can help him succeed in Test cricket if he is given another opportunity later this year.

Renshaw made his ODI debut against India in October and his first T20I appearance in January against Pakistan before being a rare positive to emerge from Australia’s T20 World Cup campaign. After coming in as a late replacement for the dropped Matt Short, Renshaw made scores of 37 against Ireland and 65 against Zimbabwe, only to then be omitted for the Sri Lanka game which saw the team crash out of the tournament.

Renshaw’s Test debut came nearly a decade ago and after his first six Tests he was averaging 53.22 with a best of 184 against Pakistan before falling out favour before the 2017-18 Ashes. He made the most recent of his 14 Test appearances against India in early 2023 having been recalled for his skills against spin but it was short-lived comeback.

But after a Sheffield Shield season which brought 499 runs at 49.90 with three centuries – in a summer where batters have struggled to average in the 40s – he has put his name back in the mix for a Test spot. Jake Weatherald did not nail down the opening role during the Ashes and there is also a middle-order vacancy after Usman Khawaja’s retirement.

“I feel like my game’s in as good order as possible,” he told reporters on the Gold Coast as Australia’s international schedule for 2026-26 was announced. “I didn’t play the full amount of Shield games this year – would have loved to be playing next week as well [in the final] so that made it a bit more frustrating – but I think the way that I’m batting, I can adapt to any situation. I feel like I can attack, I can defend and I’m enjoying myself. So if I do get to play Test cricket again soon that’d be awesome, but there’s a lot of other things that I’m really enjoying at the moment.”

His elevation to Australia’s white-ball sides came on the back of his development as a limited-overs player in recent seasons. Renshaw sees the benefits of the way he has expanded his white-ball game – which included a 51-ball 102 against Perth Scorchers in the BBL – as transferring into his long-form batting.

“With my one-day cricket, specifically, I think I’m able to manipulate the game a bit more and we’re sort of seeing it a little bit more around the world about trying to change the way that bowlers are bowling,” Renshaw said. “I think in the past in red-ball cricket, the bowlers are locking in for top of off and you’ve got to try and leave as well as you can, but even now just walking down the wicket changes the angle [of] the bowler, the length, gets him thinking what you’re trying to do. So if you can have a little bit of doubt in the bowler’s mind I think as a batter that’s something that’s really important.”

While Renshaw’s season began with a Test recall being the priority, emerging as a white-ball international was reward for a promise to himself to make the most of anything the game threw at him.

“There’s a few little technical changes that I made last year [in] pre-season time and then [it was] just a mindset shift,” he said. “Just trying to really enjoy my cricket, enjoy the challenge of whatever format it was. I think you talk to a lot of guys who’ve retired, it’s a bit more of what would I liked to have done when I played, and I really didn’t want to look back when I’m retired and say I wish I’d done this I wish I’d done that.

“So just go out enjoy it. Every time you get to play a game of cricket you sort of look back to your younger self and go ‘how cool is this’, whether I’m playing for Queensland playing for Australia they’re both pretty special moments.”

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