{"id":922704,"date":"2026-10-10T05:48:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T05:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/922704\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T05:48:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T05:48:17","slug":"cricket-news-2026-matthew-renshaw-backs-nic-maddinson-after-australia-struggles-on-day-one-of-south-africa-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/922704\/","title":{"rendered":"Cricket news 2026: Matthew Renshaw backs Nic Maddinson after Australia struggles on day one of South Africa series"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pressure is growing on the Australian<\/a> cricket brains trust to inject more fresh blood into the Test set-up after the tourists fielded an XI entirely made up of players in their 30s for the opening match of the South Africa<\/a> series.<\/p>\n

Australia limped to stumps on day one of the Durban Test at 6-187<\/a>, before Matthew Renshaw<\/a> backed Nic Maddinson<\/a> to come good after his shock recall produced a horror outcome: a 33-ball duck.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Pat Cummins (left) and Matthew Renshaw.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Australian team picked for the Durban Test is the first Australian XI in history selected for an international match \u2013 men\u2019s or women\u2019s \u2013 that consists completely of players in their 30s.<\/p>\n

The youngest player in the XI for the first match of the three-game series is 30-year-old Renshaw, who made his Test debut way back in 2016, and the average age is a tick under 35.<\/p>\n

The oldest players are Nathan Lyon<\/a> (38), Steve Smith<\/a> (37), Mitchell Starc<\/a> (36), Josh Hazlewood<\/a> (35) and Alex Carey<\/a> (35).<\/p>\n

Cameron Green<\/a>, 27, would be playing if he hadn\u2019t suffered an abdominal strain<\/a> in the final one-day international of the South Africa tour, but selection chairman George Bailey<\/a> and head coach Andrew McDonald<\/a> have for several years faced calls to freshen up the team with young talent.<\/p>\n

Ricky Ponting<\/a> hit out over Australian cricket\u2019s stagnate approach to transition on the eve of the South Africa series.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s me, I\u2019m sticking two young batters in there now,\u201d the former Test captain told News Corp.<\/p>\n

\u201c… These young guys that have been talked about for the last couple of years, just give them a go \u2026 Pick them now, give them a go.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that doesn\u2019t work, you can go back to the older guys in 12 months leading up to an Ashes or World Test Championship. But if you don\u2019t do it, then it gets harder and harder and harder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the promising younger crop are Nathan McSweeney, Ollie Peake, Campbell Kellaway, Sam Konstas<\/a>, Sam Elliott, Fergus O\u2019Neill, Lance Morris and Todd Murphy.<\/p>\n

No one \u2013 other than Bailey, McDonald and maybe captain Pat Cummins<\/a> \u2013 could have seen the squad selection of Maddinson coming.<\/p>\n

The left-hander hadn\u2019t played Test cricket since 2016, and first-class cricket since March 2025, but was parachuted into the squad after Green was ruled out injured.<\/p>\n

Australian cricket\u2019s decision-making continued to baffle when Maddinson was sent out to open on day one instead of Renshaw, who slotted in at No.5.<\/p>\n

Maddinson was fortunate to survive an lbw shout, with the South Africans choosing not to appeal before replays showed the Australian would have been given out had the hosts challenged.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the New South Welshman departed for a 33-ball duck after chopping a Marco Jansen delivery onto his stumps.<\/p>\n

Maddinson\u2019s 33-ball duck is the longest duck by an Australian opener in Test history where balls-faced data is available.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Nic Maddinson trudges off after making a 33-ball duck.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

Mark Waugh unloaded on selectors<\/a> after Maddinson\u2019s failure, accusing them of \u201cthrowing darts at a dartboard, hoping for a bullseye\u201d.<\/p>\n

Renshaw defended Maddinson, and by extension the selectors, at the close of play.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s just what opening batters have to deal with,\u201d Renshaw said of the difficulty of opening in Test cricket.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we all know how hard it is to do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately for Maddo it wasn\u2019t to be today, but we know that cricket\u2019s a weird old game sometimes. I think sometimes you feel like it\u2019s just one of those games.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019ll come out the other side of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s fine; it\u2019s just cricket.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pressure is growing on the Australian cricket brains trust to inject more fresh blood into the Test set-up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":922705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-922704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=922704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/922705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=922704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=922704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=922704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}