Matt Renshaw's Century Sparks Australia to ODI Victory

Matt Renshaw has spent most of his international life with a new ball in his sights and an opening slot next to his name. In Harare, he walked in at No. 6 and finally found something he had been chasing for seven years – an Australian century in coloured clothing.

He doesn’t think it would have come at the top.

Renshaw carved 109 from 94 balls against Zimbabwe, the heartbeat of Australia’s 59‑run win in the first ODI. It was his first hundred for Australia in any format since that lone Test ton at the SCG against Pakistan in 2017, when he was the fresh-faced opener built to blunt the shine.

This was different. Less new-ball theatre, more calculation.

“I [get] a bit giddy” higher up the order, he admitted afterwards, a rare top-order bat happy to talk down the glamour job. At six, he could breathe, watch, and then go to work.

The platform above him allowed it. By the time he emerged, the game had moved out of its nervy opening exchanges and into the grind of the middle overs. That is where Renshaw now believes he belongs in this format.

“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.

Simple words, but the innings backed them up. He threaded the ball rather than tried to bully it, picking off singles, turning strike, and punishing anything loose.

Spin dominated that middle passage in Harare. Renshaw welcomed it.

“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 clarity showed. Instead of the rigid caution that can grip an opener protecting his off stump, there was freedom. He swept, nudged, and then accelerated, the innings growing in authority as Zimbabwe’s spinners searched for answers and found only gaps in the field.

Australia rode his 109 to a total Zimbabwe never truly threatened, closing out a 59‑run victory to go 1–0 up in the three‑match series. For a player who had drifted to the fringes of the white-ball set-up, it felt like a reintroduction rather than a cameo.

The timing could hardly be sharper.

Renshaw has only just forced his way back into the Test squad after a three-year absence, returning last month to open in Australia’s innings victory over Bangladesh in Mackay. That recall was built on the old image of him: a patient, technically sound opener built for long days and red balls.

Now, as he packs his bags for South Africa, he carries something else – proof that he can shape an innings from the engine room as well as from the top.

He has been named in Australia’s Test squad for the upcoming tour against the Proteas, a three-match assignment that will ask different questions again: Durban from October 9-13, Gqeberha from October 18-22, and Cape Town from October 27-31.

There, if selected, he will likely go back to facing the new ball, back to the role he says can make him “giddy”.

Before that, there is unfinished business in Harare. The second ODI against Zimbabwe comes on Friday, another chance for Renshaw to prove that this was not a one-off, but the start of a second act written from the middle order rather than the top.