Renshaw’s runs
It might sound weird, but Matt Renshaw knows what he does well. Sure, most batters do. But it is rare for them to be so clear-cut. If you bowl seam outside off, he will leave the ball. If he needs to score from it, he’ll move outside the line and somehow middle it to backward square leg.
And yet, he is not a run machine. Even two seasons back he was struggling in the Shield.
When he faces spin, he sweeps, reverse-sweeps, and also goes down the track. Keeping him on strike can be tough, because he often has two, or even three fielders out on the rope. So he can go at his own pace without ever feeling rushed.
When Renshaw first played, he was really limited, and it held him back. Now he’s more rounded and probably Australia’s best spin player since Steve Smith (with apologies to Peter Handscomb).
This was the innings of a man who knows his game inside out. On the wagon wheel, he scores a lot through covers and point. Almost all of that comes from cover-driving the spinners and reverse-sweeping them. He even - brace yourself - hit one through mid-off playing a reverse sweep.
Against the quicks, mid-off to point is almost a no-go zone.
But the difference between this Renshaw and the 20-year-old version is that if you are not bowling what he wants, he will move around the crease to find a single. So you can’t stop him scoring, and he only plays his areas.
His monumental 190 against South Africa in the first Test was a great innings, made simple. Renshaw knows what he wants to do, and does it.
