With a cloud of uncertainty over Australia's opening combination, Rahul Iyer runs through all 18 players they've used at the top over the last decade.
Since the start of 2015, England (22), South Africa (20) and Zimbabwe (19) have used more Test openers than Australia. But the first two, roughly the same level of teams, currently have fairly settled opening pairs – Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley for England and Ryan Rickelton and Aiden Markram for South Africa.
Australia's opening combination has been an on-and-off game of musical chairs since Chris Rogers and David Warner left holes in 2015 and 2024 with their retirements. At present, none of Nathan McSweeney, Sam Konstas or Marnus Labuschagne has really staked their claim to be Usman Khawaja's opening partner. Here are all the players to open the innings for the Aussies in the last ten years.
Chris Rogers
Since Jan 1, 2015 – Inns: 11 | Runs: 631 | Avg: 63.1 | HS: 173
Rogers scored four and 15 against India on Test debut in 2008, dismissed both times by Irfan Pathan. He did not play again until July 2013, but became a mainstay of the side aged 36. 2015 was the last year of his Test career, which yielded 2,015 runs in all. In that calendar year, he averaged 63.1 from 10 innings with one century and two more scores in the 90s.
Rogers was active in first-class cricket for the following year, and scored twin centuries in his final match – 132 and 100 not out for Somerset against Nottinghamshire in September 2016.
David Warner
Since Jan 1, 2015 – Inns: 138 | Runs: 5,747 | Avg: 43.2 | HS: 335*
There's little to say about Warner that hasn't been said before. He opened 11 times with Rogers, and they averaged 72 as a pair. After Rogers retired, he became the Test side's undisputed No.1 opener, averaging 43.2 from 2015 to 2024 (when he retired), and 44.6 overall at the top of the order. No opener in Australia's Test history has scored as many as his 8,747 runs.
Shaun Marsh
Since Jan 1, 2015 – Inns: 10 | Runs: 347 | Avg: 38.9 | HS: 130
Marsh entered the wider cricketing consciousness aged 24, when he won the Orange Cap at the inaugural IPL in 2008. It wasn't until three years later that he played Test cricket, and he promptly scored 141 on debut against Sri Lanka from No.3. Marsh first opened the batting in 2015, alongside Warner.
He ended up doing so just 10 times in all, across three years and six different countries. Marsh wasn't a failure by any stretch, averaging just under 39 at the top, but his career as a whole was quite stop-start. Across 2017 and 2018, the last two full calendar years of his Test career, he batted mainly at No.4 and No.5.
Joe Burns
Since Jan 1, 2015 – Inns: 36 | Runs: 1,296 | Avg: 37 | HS: 180
Now leading Italy, Burns is one of three Australian Test openers to score over 1,000 runs since 2015. A specialist opener, he batted at No.6 on Test debut against India in 2014, and was recalled 11 months later to replace the retired Rogers at the top. He slotted in seamlessly alongside Warner, as the pair scored 1,365 runs at 50.55 at the top of the order.
Like his debut, his final Test came against India on Boxing Day, this time in 2020. Debutant Will Pucovski replaced Burns in the third Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, and the senior man hasn't returned to the Test scene. It seems unlikely that he ever will.
Usman Khawaja
Since Jan 1, 2015 – Inns: 80 | Runs: 3,412 | Avg: 48.1 | HS: 232
Khawaja's Test career spans 14 years, but wildly different ones. He debuted at No.3 in the 2011 Ashes, occupying the spot unchanged until 2019, apart from the occasional foray one spot either side. Aged 33, he was dropped midway through the 2019 Ashes (right after Ben Stokes's famous chase at Headingley).
Three years later, Travis Head's case of Covid-19 led to Khawaja's recall for the 2022 home Ashes. Snatching the chance to play at all, he batted at No.5 and scored 137 and 101 not out. Since then, all 73 of his Test innings have come at the top of the order, and only Joe Root has scored more runs at a better average than his 2,928 at 44.36.
Matt Renshaw
Since Jan 1, 2015 – Inns: 19 | Runs: 605 | Avg: 33.6 | HS: 184
Twenty-year-old Renshaw's introduction to Test cricket in 2016 saw him open the innings in a day-night game against the pace trio of Vernon Philander, Kyle Abbott and Kagiso Rabada. He remained not out on 37 off 134 balls in Australia's run-chase and told the media that he'd never had so much fun in his life.
The fun didn't last long though, as Renshaw played fairly regularly until he was dropped from the side in 2018 (not before Allan Border provided a scathing review of his temperament, effectively for Renshaw refusing to soil himself on the field of play).
He made a brief comeback in 2023, batting at Nos.5 and 6 against South Africa and India, but returned just nine runs in four innings. He remains in the conversation as an opening option for now.
Cameron Bancroft
Since Jan 1, 2015 – Inns: 18 | Runs: 446 | Avg: 26.2 | HS: 82*
More or less an alternate to Renshaw, Bancroft played eight Tests across 2017 and 2018, before becoming infamous for attempting to hide sandpaper down his trousers. He returned after his ban to play two Ashes Tests in 2019, but has not played Test cricket since.
His record currently reads 446 runs at 26.23. While he was in the conversation to play the recent Border-Gavaskar Trophy, he has gradually slipped away from it. A good start to this year's Sheffield Shield could put him back in contention for the Ashes, though...
Aaron Finch
Since Jan 1, 2015 – Inns: 10 | Runs: 278 | Avg: 27.8 | HS: 62
By 2018, Finch had been a white-ball regular for nearly five years, opening the batting. He made his Test debut in Australia's first game since the ball-tampering scandal – replacing Warner at the top of the order after the latter's ban.
He didn't last long in red-ball cricket. Five Tests that year against Pakistan and India were all he got, averaging 27.8 with two half-centuries.
Marcus Harris
Since Jan 1, 2015 – Inns: 26 | Runs: 607 | Avg: 25.3 | HS: 79
Harris's first Test call-up in 2018 had an air of controversy, given then-Australia coach Justin Langer's comments from three years prior, calling him “mediocre with flashes of brilliance” for Western Australia. He opened on debut with Victoria teammate Finch, and between the two, certainly had a better time of it during the 2018-19 Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
But Harris's form tailed off in the 2019 Ashes in England. He played the final game of the 2020/21 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, and four Tests in the 2021-22 Ashes, but hasn't been in the Test set-up since. In 2025, he fell just short of the coveted milestone of 1,000 County Championship runs by the end of May, playing for Lancashire.
Matthew Wade
Since Jan 1, 2015 – Inns: 4 | Runs: 111 | Avg: 27.8 | HS: 40
Normally a No.7 as the wicketkeeper, Wade only opened in two Tests, both during the 2020/21 Border-Gavaskar Trophy as a stand-in for Warner. Captain Tim Paine had the big gloves in these matches.
Will Pucovski
Since Jan 1, 2015 – Inns: 2 | Runs: 72 | Avg: 36.0 | HS: 62
Hailed as Australia's next big hope, Pucovski debuted in the third Test of the 2020/21 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, scoring 62 and 10. But a shoulder injury while fielding in that game left him needing reconstructive surgery, and ruled him out of action for six months. In February 2022, he suffered the eleventh concussion of his professional career and in October that year, took an indefinite break from the game.
He returned to action in January 2024, but had yet another concussion during a Second XI game. The following month, in a Sheffield Shield game, Pucovski had to be subbed out after being hit by a Riley Meredith bouncer. Later in the year, he was advised against continuing his cricketing career, by a panel of medical experts. In April 2025, Pucovski announced his retirement from professional cricket, aged just 27.
Alex Carey
Since Jan 1, 2015 – Inns: 1 | Runs: 9 | Avg: 9.0 | HS: 9
Opening was a one-off for wicketkeeper Carey, who went to the top for a fourth-innings chase of 20 against England in 2021.
Travis Head
Since Jan 1, 2015 – Inns: 8 | Runs: 321 | Avg: 45.9 | HS: 90
Normally a No.5, Australia have used Head as an opener in subcontinental conditions over the last couple of years – a role he has performed superbly in white-ball cricket. At the time of writing, he averages 45.9 from eight innings at the top.
Matthew Kuhnemann
Since Jan 1, 2015 – Inns: 1 | Runs: 6 | Avg: 6.0 | HS: 6
Kuhnemann was a nightwatch against India at Ahmedabad in 2023.
Steve Smith
Since Jan 1, 2015 – Inns: 8 | Runs: 171 | Avg: 28.5 | HS: 91*
Somewhat scrambling for a new Test opener after Warner's retirement, Australia pushed Smith up against the West Indies in early 2024 after he said he was willing to move from his No.4 spot. He carried his bat with 91 as Australia lost at the Gabba, but in his other seven innings only crossed 20 once.
By the second half of the year, Smith returned to No.4, where he remains for now.
Nathan McSweeney
Since Jan 1, 2015 – Inns: 6 | Runs: 72 | Avg: 14.4 | HS: 39
After Smith moved back down, Australia picked McSweeney, normally a No.3 or No.4 in domestic cricket, as an opener following impressive performances against India A just before the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. He averaged just 14.4 from six innings, effectively becoming Australia's sacrificial lamb at the altar of Jasprit Bumrah's all-time great series.
He has not yet made it back to the Test side.
Sam Konstas
Since Jan 1, 2015 – Inns: 10 | Runs: 163 | Avg: 16.3 | HS: 60
At the MCG on Boxing Day in 2024, Konstas became Australia's youngest opener of all time and instantly stole the show with an impudent 60 – even telling TV cameras mid-innings how much he loved ramping Bumrah, before getting into a war of words with the India spearhead in the following Test.
Unfortunately, the runs have now dried up for Konstas, who hasn't crossed 25 in nine innings since that debut 60. It remains to be seen whether he makes it back for this year's Ashes.
Marnus Labuschagne
Since Jan 1, 2015 – Inns: 2 | Runs: 39 | Avg: 19.5 | HS: 22
Australia's latest experiment at the top saw No.3 Labuschagne pushed up a spot during the World Test Championship, perhaps in a last-ditch attempt to arrest his slump in form. He managed 17 & 22, and was not picked for any of the three Tests in the West Indies that followed.
His spot in the XI, not just as opener, remains in question after Australia skipper Pat Cummins acknowledged that Cameron Green was a long-term option for No.3.
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