Buoyed by his one-day call up for Australia, Matthew Renshaw says Usman Khawaja’s Test renaissance has given him reassurance his Test career is not over regardless of who is picked to open in the Ashes this summer.
Renshaw declared he “want(s) to be there” come next month’s Ashes opener but revealed he’s freed himself from all the noise regarding national selection, going as far as hiding cricket posts on Instagram in a bid to block out the speculation.
More than two-and-a-half years after his last Test match, the 29-year-old is back in the mix to partner Usman Khawaja against England after starting the Sheffield Shield season with a century for Queensland.
Renshaw, who on Sunday made his ODI debut for Australia almost nine years after his Test bow, said his close relationship with Khawaja – his opening partner at Queensland – had helped him realise there was still time to add to his 14 Test caps.
“I’m really close with ‘Uzzy’ (Khawaja). He sort of thought his Test journey was over and look at him now,” Renshaw said today at Adelaide Oval on the eve of the second ODI against India.
“(I’m) trying to try to talk to him about how he’s gone about it (because) it’s just amazing.”
National selectors have all but guaranteed Khawaja’s spot at the top of the order for November 21’s first Test in Perth, with Sheffield Shield form a determining factor in who lines up alongside him after incumbent Sam Konstas endured a tough tour of the West Indies earlier this year.
Renshaw’s Queensland skipper Marnus Labuschagne is a hot favourite to earn a Test recall after starting the domestic season with four centuries in six innings in Shield and one-day cricket.
Jake Weatherald, last season’s Shield leading run-scorer, is another in the frame and has also started strongly with consecutive half-centuries in round one against the Bulls followed by 94 against Western Australia in round two, backing up his 906 runs at an average of 50 in 2024-25.
But Renshaw is likely oblivious to how many runs are being scored by other contenders, revealing he doesn’t check scores from any other games in a deliberate ploy to free his mind.
His ignorance to other matches was highlighted when informed by chief selector George Bailey that he’d been selected in the ODI squad to face India and he “had to Google” the schedule as he didn’t know the series was on.
“There’s been times in my career where I’d come off after a Shield game, and obviously all the Shield games are on at the same time, and (I’d be) looking at the scorecards, looking at different names and seeing how they went,” Renshaw explained.
“(But) the first Shield game this season, I couldn’t tell you who scored runs in other games.
“I was just trying to worry about our own game and trying to win for Queensland.
“I think that’s a better place for me to be, otherwise I just get too caught up in other people and not worry about myself.
“Knowing that someone else is scoring runs doesn’t matter to how I’m going to go out and play my game of cricket.”
Renshaw attributes being dropped from the Queensland Sheffield Shield team just before the onset of the Covid pandemic in February 2020 as the circuit breaker behind his now inward-looking mentality.
Becoming a father of two has also reshaped his priorities, he said.
The left-hander missed last season’s Shield final loss to South Australia as his wife Josie gave birth to the couple’s second child Edward, who along with their eldest Charlotte, were on hand in Perth on Sunday to cheer on their dad in his first ODI for Australia.
“The first half of the season until Christmas was always trying to get picked in the Test team and then the second half was almost like I could breathe again after Big Bash,” Renshaw said of his old mindset.
“Whereas now, I go home, and I’ve got to change nappies, I’ve got to put kids to bed, I’ve got to try and calm screaming babies down, so I don’t really have time to look out and go, ‘This is what I need to do’.
“(It’s) knowing that cricket is not my sole reason (and) if I get everything else in order, the cricket will just take care of itself.
“When you’re young, you go home, you’ve got nothing to do so you’re just sitting on your phone scrolling.
“I don’t have (this publisher’s) Cricket Australia Live app (anymore). I don’t look at any news … I hide all the cricket stuff on my Instagram so I don’t see it.
“It’s a way for me to make sure that I’m in the best mind frame to go out and bat, rather than just feeling like I need a score runs because someone else did.”
While surprised by his call up to Australia’s one-day squad, Renshaw believes he is playing well enough to also be in the frame for a Test recall.
The Queenslander played his last Test match during the 2023 tour of India, replacing David Warner mid-match after he was substituted out of the second Test in Delhi.
He has been around the Test squad since, as a reserve batter during the 2023 Ashes in the UK and the New Zealand tour in 2024 but was jumped by Nathan McSweeney and then Konstas last summer.
“I want to be there,” said Renshaw.
“It would be remiss me not to say that.
“The cricket I’ve played over the last six months, since I’ve had a few conversations with important people to me with my batting, has been good.
“I don’t think I’d be in the one-day international team without that.
“But I try and stay away from it as much as possible. I’m just worrying about myself, if someone else does get the opportunity to open in the Ashes, I know that they’re going to be good enough.
“I know Australian cricket is strong enough that whoever gets that chance to open in that first Test is going to have done enough and be good enough to do that for Australia.
“Opening is a hard job in red-ball cricket specifically, and we all know how hard it is.
“All the openers respect each other, and if someone else gets picked, then they deserve it.”
Renshaw is back at a ground he already has fond memories of for his second ODI appearance on Thursday, with Adelaide Oval the same venue where he made his Test debut as a 20-year-old against South Africa in 2016.
He’s also called Adelaide Oval home in his two seasons playing for the Strikers in BBL|10 and |11.
“I love Adelaide, it’s always a great place to play,” Renshaw said.
“It’ll be heaving tomorrow (being a) sell out.
“I wasn’t expecting (to be here) at all before the series; it surprised me a bit.
“I think that sums up where I’m at, that I’ve got my schedule for Queensland and anything else is a massive bonus.”
Australia v India ODIs 2025
Australia squad: Mitchell Marsh (c), Xavier Bartlett, Alex Carey, Cooper Connolly, Nathan Ellis, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Marnus Labuschagne, Mitchell Owen, Josh Philippe, Matthew Renshaw, Matthew Short, Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa. Game three: Josh Inglis
India squad: Shubman Gill (c), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, KL Rahul, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Dhruv Jurel, Yashasvi Jaiswal
October 19: Australia won by seven wickets (DLS method)
October 23: Second ODI v India, Adelaide Oval, Adelaide, 2:30pm AEDT
October 25: Third ODI v India, SCG, Sydney, 2:30pm AEDT
All matches live via You Sports and Foxtel