'Timing and luck': Refreshed Renshaw set for Aus A return

With some extended time off, an injury overcome, and a couple of key technical tweaks, Matt Renshaw believes he might just be ready to take his game to "another level".

Renshaw is set to turn out in the white-ball leg of Australia A's upcoming series against Sri Lanka A in Darwin across this next week, and the 29-year-old – who was once pegged as the country's next long-term Test opener – is feeling as well placed mentally as ever, having taken a couple of months away from cricket with the birth of his second child in April.

As such, his return has seen him in high spirits. As well as posting the below social media clip in which he takes the mickey out of his bright start to pre-season training, the often-cheeky Queenslander has been making a habit of stealing his chief executive Terry Svenson's parking spot.

"Well he's told me that he's gotten rid of the CEO park now anyway," Renshaw laughs, "but I haven't had a call about it yet."

Shenanigans aside, the left-hander has been getting down to business back at Allan Border Field. The paternity leave afforded him the sort of time and space away from his profession he knew he sorely needed. It has allowed him to reflect, and plot, for what he sees as the second half of a career that has so far scaled some impressive heights while leaving critics expecting more.

"I didn't pick up a bat for 8-10 weeks, which is the longest I've gone for a long time," the 14-Test rep tells cricket.com.au. "The last four years have been on-the-go cricket, and now I've had a few months just to get back and remember why (I'm playing), and even just sitting at home thinking: What in my batting is going on? Why am I doing this? Why am I doing that?

"Having conversations with important people to me about my technique and my batting and how I want to play – I think that's all really beneficial, because yes, playing a lot is really helpful, and you can go and play county cricket, but I think I've really benefited from this little break."

Renshaw's dissections and discussions led to him taking a more detailed look at his technique upon his return. Via a front-on and side-on video set-up, and with the expertise of Queensland batting coach Wade Townsend, as well as his dad, Ian Renshaw (who is well versed in the area himself), he spotted habits and practices that displeased him.

"There's been a few things that crept into my game that I didn't even realise," he says. "A few things going on with my legs that were really weird, and I don't know how it happened … my legs were sort of sticking out at weird angles."

The trio has set about trying to make him more comfortable at the crease, and putting him in positions that ensure he is looking to play with 'intent' – a cricket buzzword nowadays but one that Renshaw insists defines his batting when he is playing at his best.

That was evident last summer at different times through the Sheffield Shield; though he averaged a disappointing 29.17, he did score a pair of fine hundreds at the Gabba and Allan Border Field, in which he showcased his ability to play to a match situation.

"I think both of those innings, I had really good intent and had really good mindset," he says. "Whether I scored at a 50 strike-rate or 80 strike-rate, as long as I have the intent, that's when my feet move well, that's when my head moves well, and I'm not thinking too much about what else is going on. I feel like that's when I'm at my best."

Renshaw's time away also coincided with his Queensland Cricket end-of-season review, in which he determined he had arrived at the mid-point of his career. It is more than a decade since he debuted in the Sheffield Shield as a prodigiously talented 18-year-old, and it will be nine years this coming summer since, aged 20, he made his Test debut.

Then, he was the next Matthew Hayden. With that came all manner of pressure and expectation. He looks at Sam Konstas now and can relate to the Test incumbent's highs and lows, all played out in the harsh spotlight of international cricket. At the other end of the scale he sees Usman Khawaja, who has scored more than 5,000 Test runs since turning 29 – the age Renshaw is now – and he knows there are more chapters to unfold in his career.

"I don't want to look back in 10 years' time and go, 'I wish I'd have done this', or 'I wish I'd have done that'," he says. "There are a few things that I wanted to do, and I feel like I'm on the way to doing them, and trying to get the best out of myself."

Allowing him to physically chart that new course has been a freedom of movement that was sorely lacking last summer. Renshaw navigated much of the 2024-25 season with a serious right wrist issue, which has largely abated with his extended time off. And while he says medical staff are "still working out what the actual cause of it all is" because similar nerve pain is now occurring in his neck and right elbow, he says he is in a much better position to work on aspects of his game during net sessions, rather than simply endure them.

All of which is holding him in good stead as he arrives in Darwin for three 50-over matches at Marrara Oval. In the early phase of his career, Renshaw was pigeon-holed as a red-ball batter, so his selection exclusively in the one-day leg of this series is intriguing. Dig a little deeper, and the selectors' logic is clear: Renshaw is the only player to make centuries from the middle-order in each of the past three domestic one-day tournaments, through which he has averaged 47.50 while striking at a tick over 100.

At international level, Australia's middle-order batters have scored just five hundreds in 38 ODIs since the beginning of 2023, and two of those have come from Glenn Maxwell, now retired. Another middle-order mainstay, Steve Smith, has also called stumps in the format.

"I assume I'm on the radar seeing as I'm playing in these Australia A games, but the last three, four years in my one-day game, it's been really enjoyable," Renshaw says.

"I've battled in that middle order, pretty much from three to five, I've got all the gears that I need, and I just really enjoy playing the different scenarios: whether we're chasing, whether we're setting, whether I need to see off a few, or go pretty hard from ball one, it always feels like I've got something to offer.

"Alex Carey is someone you look to and go, 'this is how you want to go about your game', with his mindset and such good intent. He's batted so well. There's lots of skilled batters … so I think there's plenty of competition, but if I keep doing what I'm doing, there's obviously a carrot there."

Under the watchful eye of his professor dad Ian, Renshaw has explored scenario training in his batting since he was a kid, and he feels that approach – that mindset – has served him well in red-ball cricket as well. And so we return to the idea of 'intent', which, career-wise, might also serve as an apt description for Renshaw's ambition to rescale the heights he reached as a youngster, which topped out with a dizzying 184 in the 2017 New Year's Test.

"I feel like I've still got a lot to offer," he says. "I've been in the game 10 years now … I've seen a lot, I've played around 120 first-class games. Timing and luck are always two big (factors) as well, but I feel like I'm ready to hit another level."

Australia A v Sri Lanka A series

July 4: First one-dayer, Marrara Cricket Ground, Darwin

July 6: Second one-dayer, Marrara Cricket Ground, Darwin

July 9: Third one-dayer, Marrara Cricket Ground, Darwin

July13-16: First four-day match, Marrara Stadium, Darwin

July 20-23: Second four-day match, Marrara Cricket Ground, Darwin

All matches live streamed on cricket.com.au and the CA Live app, and via Kayo Sports. All matches start 10:30am AEST.