FIRST TEST

Renshaw runs into trouble

MATT Renshaw was lucky to make it to the dressing room toilet in time in Pune late yesterday. But it would seem even luckier that Allan Border is not his captain.

The Australian opener was involved in a bizarre moment as his classy debut innings on Indian soil was interrupted by a stomach upset.

“I hope he’s lying on the table in there half dead,” Border said on Fox Sports.

“Otherwise, as captain, I would not be happy.”

Renshaw did not return at the fall of Shaun Marsh’s wicket in the second session, but came back when Peter Handscomb was the third Australian batsman out.

Word out of the Australian camp was that Renshaw was untroubled when he went out to bat at the start of play, only for the sickness to hit him suddenly.

He wasn’t quite “half dead”, but it was obvious the 20-yearold, on his first tour of India, was in trouble.

They might not breed them as tough as they did in the 1980s when Border famously told Dean Jones he would “get a Queenslander” to replace him when he was ill in Chennai, but no batsman wants to leave the crease, especially when he is 36 not out and in the process of compiling a memorable knock under extreme pressure.

Skipper Steve Smith, who had just walked out to the middle following David Warner’s dismissal at 1-82, appeared perplexed as an obviously agitated Renshaw met him halfway to the fence before disappearing like Usain Bolt into the rooms.