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“Would you rather an opener who can make a hundred in a session, or can bat through a day?”
It was one of the better end-of-day pub debrief questions my group of SCG-Day-1 mates had tackled in the 17 years we’ve been making the annual pilgrimage.
In fairness, we’d just come from the best day’s play at the SCG in recent memory. David Warner’s 100 before lunch was every bit as entertaining as the Steve Waugh last-ball hundred we saw more than a decade ago. We couldn’t believe how easy Warner made the game look.
Also apparent was just how well Warner must be seeing the ball currently, and how quickly he throws his hands through the ball in playing a shot. I say this, because for someone hitting the ball so cleanly, Warner’s footwork was staggeringly minimal.
Regardless, it was some kind of innings; definitely one to remember.
While all this was happening, we were trying to guess how low a score Matt Renshaw would end up with at lunch. A 0/130 prediction wasn’t far off the mark, but my suggestion Renshaw would be only 15* was, in hindsight, a bit rough.
And to be clear, this was no criticism of Renshaw’s approach. After years of trying to find the perfect opening partner for Warner – the count is eight now, from memory – in Renshaw, the selectors have found a gem.
With Warner ‘going’ at the other end, Renshaw knew his job was simply to stay with him and wear out the bowlers. He turned the strike over well, but his ability to soak up deliveries is arguably more important. The more good bowling Renshaw can leave or defend as required, the more likely Warner gets a bad ball to put away. It’s a simple, but effective partnership that’s already averaging 68.6 from five innings.
Just as effective as Renshaw’s first session patience was his own acceleration once Warner was dismissed, as Ronan O’Connell detailed on Wednesday. In the last session, a couple of us moved from our down-the-wicket Trumper Stand vantage point to the other end of the stand, now looking directly across to the Members Stand with the city in the background.
From this squarer view, we had a wonderful view of Renshaw’s rapidly expanding range of shots, and particularly his footwork against Yasir Shah. As the Pakistani bowlers tired in what quickly became a long day, Renshaw’s third fifty came in just 53 balls, finishing the day unbeaten on 167 and with the widest smile you’ll see this summer.
Fast-forward to the debrief, and it was Renshaw’s last session pedal-down methods that prompted the curliest of curly questions.
And it’s not even a matter of choosing one opener over the other, but more trying to get a gauge of what will likely be more beneficial to the team in the long run.
It was so good a question, I was moved to stick one of those fancy Twitter poll things up for an hour while we worked through more tricky questions, some pretty reasonable pub schnitzels, and a few frothies in no particular order.
Excellent #AUSvPAK post-day discussion worthy of sharing.
Would you rather an opener who…
— Brett McKay (@BMcSport) January 3, 2017
Ultimately, the poll respondents reached the same conclusion we did; an innings like Warner’s may well win this Test and others, but Renshaw batting out a day will give Usman Khawaja, Steven Smith and Peter Handscomb the opportunity to come out and play their shots at the other end.
In the short term, Renshaw will surely go to India, and it’s a bit unknown how he’ll go over there. Boxing Day was the first time he’d ever played on the Melbourne Cricket Ground, so it would be safe to assume he won’t have a lot of experience in India or on the subcontinent, either.
But in the longer term, this is a top five that will win plenty of Test matches. It’s a top order that will soon enough become very reliable, one which won’t require seamers to be picked on their batting ability, and one which will take pressure off the likes of Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood to win games on their own with the ball.
It was a huge gamble for the selectors to throw Renshaw and Handscomb into the fire of Test cricket when they did, but they might have hit gold with the first swing.
And even better, this top order will, in turn, take pressure off the further experimentation at numbers six and seven in the order. Both remain a work in progress, and it will certainly take more than one innings to solve those spots.