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Allan Border owes Matt Renshaw an apology

27th February, 2017
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Times have changed, AB. (AAP Image/Joe Castro)
Expert
27th February, 2017
39
1929 Reads

You couldn’t meet three better blokes than Allan Border, Geoff Lawson and Gavin Robertson.

But the way they have attacked Australian opening batsman Matt Renshaw by leaving the Pune pitch to urgently attend to nature defies description.

All three have publicly pilloried the 20-year-old Queenslander, stopping just short of accusing him of treason.

This is hardly the type of story to read over breakfast, but when the trots hit you’ve gotta go – now.

The alternatives are both grim and messy.

Border started the barrage on Fox saying he hoped Renshaw was “on the table and half dead.”

“Anything less and I would be ropeable as Australian captain,” Border added as the uncompromising skipper of old.

But Border has form in this regard.

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In Madras, 1986, Dean Jones was dehydrating and vomiting while batting but Border told him to stay there as the team needed him.

“If a Victorian can’t do the job I’ll get a Queenslander to do it,” was Border’s retort.

If you want to cut a Victorian to the very core tell him someone from another state would have more guts.

Australian batsman Matt Renshaw

The cutting comment had the desired effect.

Jones soldiered on to post one of Test cricket’s most courageous 210s and was immediately taken to hospital and placed on a drip – he was absolutely knackered and quite ill.

But the result of that game didn’t match the courage shown. The Test ended in a tie, still only the second tie in Test history.

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Let me make this crystal clear – the Jones and Renshaw situations were vastly different.

Sure, Jones was genuinely sick, probably seriously so if the truth was known, often vomiting pitch-side that helped him relieve some of the nausea.

Renshaw had only one way to go to relieve his plight and that was the porcelain.

There was no other possible option.

Chorusing critics Border, Lawson and Robertson had obviously never been caught short like Renshaw. Quite often the trots hit suddenly with no warning whatsoever.

He was at the wicket with thousands in the stands and millions watching on television. There was no way he could solve his problem in public.

So the youngster deserved praise on two fronts.

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He later made fun of his predicament at the media conference and the next day refrained from criticising Border.

It would have been so easy for Renshaw to pose the question to Border of what would he have done under the circumstances?

If Border had answered he would have toughed it out and stayed on and kacked his dacks nobody, and I mean nobody, would believe him.

In short, Border, Lawson and Robertson owe Matt Renshaw an apology.

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