Plan was to wear the bowlers down: Matt Renshaw

Bengaluru: It’s no secret that patience is a commodity that’s scarce. The emphasis has fallen on results. The saying ‘it’s the journey and not the destination’ has turned on its head. Patience no longer holds the same lofty standards as it once did.

That is unless you find it at the right place. And Matt Renshaw can make a strong pitch for the virtue. The young Aussie opener showcased temperament far beyond his tender years as he frustrated the Indian bowlers and the home fans to no end with a 263-minute stay in the middle.

Quick deliveries, turners, odd bouncers and ones that stayed low were all met with a stoic defence and an easy smile. The latter one met with some amount of chagrin by his Indian counterparts.

All in all, Renshaw faced 196 balls during his 60-run innings, numbers that simultaneously convey little or everything about the story that unraveled on the day, before Ravindra Jadeja sent him back to the pavilion. That is 32.66 overs.
The 20-year-old knew what he had to do and did so with minimum fuss.

“When I was younger, I wasn’t the biggest bloke and so instead of retiring, once we got to fifty we had to retire and someone else could come in, I didn’t want to let anyone else bat. So I tried to get to fifty as slowly as possible,” explained Renshaw after the second day’s play.

“The plan this morning was just to try and bat as long as possible and wear the Indian bowlers down. We know that if we can get them into a high amount of overs, we’d be in a good position.”

He did that alright! He and the rest of the Aussies kept it neat and took minimal risk on a pitch that proved just how devastating it can be during the Indian innings.

“It was really challenging to score off both the quicks and the spinners. It was just a grind,” revealed the England-born batsman who is playing just his sixth Test match.

“I think just the variety of different types of spin; some turning a lot, some not as much and some just going on with the angle. It was a bit harder against the quicks because it’s not bouncing as much, and some are going up. In Pune we knew it was going to spin, this one we don’t really know.”

Apart from the deliveries, there were verbal bouncers as well to go with Virat Kohli’s in your face attitude that always seems to ramp up the crowd..
A challenge he took up quite well.

“It was really loud out there when he (Kohli) was doing that (urging the crowd on). It’s something I’m probably not used to but it’s about embracing different conditions and different challenges that we get,” he remarked.  

“I was just trying to enjoy and laugh at what he was saying because some of it was quite funny. He was just saying that I might need to run off and go to the toilet again,” he added with a smile (referring to the Pune incident).

His sense of humour and patience has evidently passed the acid test.
All that remains is, not if, but, how long the young man will hold his own in the Australian side. Sunday’s evidence suggests it could be for long.