Matt Renshaw has waited a long time for this feeling.
Seven years on from his lone Test hundred at the SCG, the left-hander finally raised his bat again in Australian colours, carving a superb 109 from 94 balls in Harare as Australia brushed aside Zimbabwe by 59 runs in the first ODI of the series.
This time, though, he did it from an unfamiliar place: No. 6.
Freedom in the middle
Renshaw has built much of his reputation at the top of the order, grinding new balls, wearing bowlers down, living with the scrutiny that comes with walking out first. Yet as he stood in the Harare sun, helmet off, acknowledging teammates and a small but appreciative crowd, he was adamant this hundred belonged to a different version of himself.
He suggested it might not have happened had he been opening.
“Higher up the order I [get] a bit giddy,” he admitted, a candid glimpse into the mental toll of life as an opener.
At six, the brief changes. The ball is older, the field more spread, the tempo different. Renshaw leaned into it.
“For me, my tempo when I come in the middle overs is just trying to hit the gaps, hit where the fielders aren't,” he said. “With spin being a very big factor in that middle period … I see it as my strength. I really understood my role. It made it really simple for me.”
The numbers backed that up. He controlled the innings, picked his moments, and turned what could have been a tricky platform into a match-winning total, driving Australia to a commanding lead that Zimbabwe never truly threatened.
A role finally defined
Before this tour, Renshaw’s ODI career had been a stop-start experiment. In his nine previous matches he had been shuffled around the order, never quite owning a role in the way he has as an opener in red-ball cricket.
Harare felt different. The middle-order brief suited his game against spin, his ability to manipulate fields, and his calm in the often-chaotic middle overs. Rather than chasing the game, he dictated it.
For a player who has fought his way back into the Test side after a three-year exile, that clarity matters.
Last month in Mackay, he returned to the Test arena the way the selectors first imagined him: at the top, setting up an innings victory over Bangladesh. That performance helped reopen the door to the baggy green. This hundred in Harare suggests he may now be forcing a second conversation — about his white-ball future.
South Africa on the horizon
Renshaw’s resurgence has already been recognised. He has been named in Australia’s Test squad for the upcoming tour of South Africa, a demanding three-match series that will say plenty about where this side is heading.
Australia will meet the Proteas in Durban from October 9-13, then Gqeberha from October 18-22, before the series closes in Cape Town from October 27-31. Conditions there will be far removed from the dry, spinning surfaces of Harare, but Renshaw’s adaptability — opener in Tests, middle-order anchor in ODIs — gives the selectors flexibility they have long craved.
For now, his focus stays in Zimbabwe. The second ODI in Harare comes on Friday, and with it another chance to cement a role that suddenly feels tailor-made.
After years of searching for his place, Matt Renshaw has put down a marker. The question now is how far this version of him can take Australia across formats.
