Weatherald lasted six Tests, and Renshaw is back for Mackay’s first Test

Australia have dropped Jake Weatherald for the second Test against Bangladesh, four months after handing him a national contract and two days after losing to Bangladesh by nine wickets in Darwin. Matthew Renshaw replaces him in the squad and is the likely partner for Travis Head when the match starts in Mackay on Saturday.

Six Tests, and the door swings again

Weatherald opened with Head through Australia’s 4-1 Ashes win and was given a Cricket Australia contract in April on the strength of it. “We liked what we saw,” chair of selectors George Bailey said when the Bangladesh squad was named.

Darwin was supposed to be the reward, a home Test for a batter who had watched Australia play there as a child in 2003. He edged behind for 23 in the first innings and dragged one on for a duck in the second, after fielding for 138 overs, and finished the match with a career average a shade above 20 from six Tests.

Coach Andrew McDonald was careful about how much any of it proved.

“There was some change to Jake in terms of where he lined up and his movement patterns,” McDonald said. “It’s always hard to critique small sample sizes on whether it holds up. He dragged one on and drove at one in the first innings and was dismissed; it’s probably harder with that smaller sample size to say, ‘Yep, that’s going to hold up under pressure’.”

The selectors did not settle on it until late on the Monday night and announced it the following day. Weatherald now joins a queue. Steve Smith, Nathan McSweeney, Sam Konstas and Marnus Labuschagne have all been tried and moved on at the top of the order since David Warner retired in early 2024.

Renshaw is the only man with two hundreds at the ground

Renshaw is 30 and has played 14 Tests, the last of them in Delhi three and a half years ago, where he was picked as a middle-order option rather than an opener. He made three centuries in the most recent Sheffield Shield season at an average of 49.90, which is the sort of return that gets a Queenslander noticed in a summer when the national side keeps running out of openers.

The reason his name fits this particular week sits in the venue records. Renshaw is the only player with two first-class centuries at Harrup Park, 135 against Victoria in 2023-24 and 170 against New South Wales back in December 2015. Very few players have any, because the ground has staged only a handful of professional red-ball matches since Queensland beat the touring Sri Lankans there in 1995-96.

Australia have not committed to a straight swap. Josh Inglis stayed in the squad and has been floated as a top-order option before, and this is a side that promoted Head to open midway through an Ashes series when Usman Khawaja was injured in Perth. But cricket.com.au’s own projected XI has Renshaw walking out with Head, and nothing since the announcement has suggested otherwise.

Labuschagne survived the squad, not the questions

Labuschagne kept his place after scores of 1 and 31 in Darwin, and there was a genuine debate about whether he would. He has gone 42 innings without a Test hundred, his last coming in July 2023, and has averaged around 25 across that stretch.

McDonald’s defence of him was honest enough to double as a warning. “Up until the point he got out, you’d sit there and say he was looking good, moving well, clipping off his pads and getting back through the ball down the ground,” he said. “It’s easy for me to sit here and try to defend that. But ultimately, it’s 31. It’s not a big score. He’s lacked runs. He feels that. We feel that.”

A 12th Test ground, and a lead that just shrank

Great Barrier Reef Arena becomes the 12th ground in Australia to stage a men’s Test and the fourth in Queensland, after the Gabba, the Exhibition Ground and Cazaly’s Stadium in Cairns. First ball is at 10am local time on 22 August, with the match scheduled through to the 26th.

Australia arrive there needing the result. Darwin was only their second defeat of this World Test Championship cycle, but it cut their points percentage from 87.50 to a shade under 78 while they stayed top, and it handed Bangladesh their first Test win in Australia. Australia have responded by changing the top of their order. Bangladesh, having dismantled that order twice in about 140 overs, have rather less to fix.

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