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Worth the wait as Renshaw adjusts to new role

Former Test opener celebrates his first hundred since moving down Queensland's batting order to No.5

Reborn former opener Matthew Renshaw has found the time spent sitting in the dressing room, waiting for his opportunity to bat in Queensland's middle-order as the biggest change to his markedly altered cricket routine this summer.

But even more anxiety-provoking was spending Sunday night unbeaten on 84 with the prospect of his first Shield century in almost three years frustratingly close yet still dauntingly distant after the first day of the Bulls' Marsh Sheffield Shield match against South Australia.

The overnight wait then turned into a challenging morning session as he edged his way closer to the milestone, before the 24-year-old former Test batter finally reached his goal shortly before the day's first drinks break.

Not only was his eventual 168 not out a breakthrough innings after a lean spell, it was his first 50-plus score since re-inventing himself as a middle-order player after taking a period of extended leave last summer to rediscover his passion for the game.

"It was pretty nerve-wracking overnight, I was thinking about it a little bit," Renshaw said after day two, which sees the Bulls 342 runs in front with only one Redbacks wicket remaining in their first innings.

"But it's nice to get a hundred on the board after a long time without one.

"Just trying to do the job for the team as well is probably the most important thing, setting it up for our bowlers to have something to bowl at."

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Renshaw's innings contained – in not altogether equal measures – controlled edges that frustrated bowlers and tantalised catchers behind the wicket, innovative shot-making including numerous reverse sweeps against spinners, and some hefty hitting as Queensland chased quick runs before lunch.

He could have been dismissed on 11, but SA failed to grasp the chance.

It was another outside edge – along the ground to the third man boundary off Wes Agar – that carried him past 100, a milestone the 24-year-old greeted with a broad smile and arms raised in triumph.

He then extended the celebration by gorging on a selection of full-tosses and half-trackers from SA leg-spinner Lloyd Pope, with one mighty blow narrowly missing a spectator walking on the north-east grass bank at Glenelg Oval oblivious to the peril hurtling towards him.

"That was a bit of fun, just freeing the arms," Renshaw said tonight.

"After all the morning trying to get to a hundred, you just relax and get to play a few shots – it's quite nice."

Renshaw's decision to step away from the first-class game in February this year was due to the dwindling affection he felt for cricket.

He told cricket.com.au during the winter that was largely due to the burn-out he felt after a hectic KFC BBL schedule with Brisbane Heat.

But also playing on the mind of a young man who admits he was prone to 'overthinking' cricket's peaks and troughs would have been the diminishing returns he's found at Shield level since his most recent Test appearance in March 2018.

That game was the final match of Australia's infamous 2018 tour to South Africa, and Renshaw (along with Bulls teammate Joe Burns) was drafted in to cover the loss of suspended openers David Warner and Cameron Bancroft.

In the weeks before he flew to Johannesburg at short notice, Renshaw posted an unbeaten 143 for Queensland against Western Australia at the Gabba, which would prove his last Shield hundred for almost three years.

Despite a successful 2018 northern summer with county team Somerset and earning selection in Australia's Test squad for the 2018 series against Pakistan in the UAE, the left-hander found runs hard to come by at the top of the Bulls' order.

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Between his hundred in the latter stages of the 2017-18 summer and his free-spirited innings yesterday and today, Renshaw managed 800 Shield runs at an average of 25 that included just three scores in excess of 50.

He's returned with a fresh outlook on the game and his place within it, though he admits not heading out to face the first over of every innings as he had done since entering first-class cricket in 2015 has been an adjustment.

"It's more the waiting to bat I've struggled with," he said.

β€œThen you come into bat and it's a different (older) ball, it's a different pitch and you're not sure what's going on.

"But I've definitely had a different perspective of the game.

"I'm definitely a lot more relaxed and just trying to let the blows come and just roll with it and not put too much pressure on myself to score runs.

"I knew that if I applied myself and did all the work, then the runs would come."

It's not only batting down the order that has allowed Renshaw to revel in greater freedom.

When he was elevated to Test cricket aged 20, amid another forgettable Australia series against South Africa in 2016, then skipper Steve Smith revealed part of the Queenslander's appeal to selectors and teammates was his consummate slips catching.

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"When I was standing next him in the (slips) cordon he caught everything that came to him and, perhaps more impressive for me, was the sound of the ball going into his hands," Smith said of Renshaw's catching prowess ahead of his Test debut.

But with specialist close-catchers Burns and Marnus Labuschagne installed in the Queensland cordon, as well as ahead of him in the Bulls' batting order, Renshaw instead frolics in the in-field, most often at mid-off or mid-on.

"It's a bit more about getting out there," he said of his new role in the field.

"(I felt) a lot of pressure on myself in the slips but our slips cordon is pretty good at the moment and hopefully they keep taking catches."