Renshaw, Khawaja, Labuschagne pile up runs against Tasmania

Matt Renshaw put his name back in the Ashes discussion with an unbeaten century, Marnus Labuschagne pushed his case for a Test return with an unbeaten half-century, and Usman Khawaja tuned up for the Ashes with a half-century of his own as Queensland's top three dominated Tasmania at Allan Border Field.

After another Ashes hopeful Michael Neser took four wickets for Queensland to bowl Tasmania out for 379 before lunch on day two, Queensland's top three pushed their case to be Australia's top three for Perth piling up 248 for 1 by stumps on day to leave the home side just 131 runs behind Tasmania with nine wickets in hand.

Renshaw, who has averaged 34 and 29 respectively in each of the last two Sheffield Shield seasons, cruised to his 24th first-class century to remind the selectors of his quality having tried to ignore the noise surrounding Australia's openers in the Ashes.

"It's hard - you have to get rid of a lot of things, external noise, off your phone and stuff but I just want to try and go out there [and play]," Renshaw said post-play. "I know that when I'm doing my job for Queensland, opening the batting well, we're generally winning games.

"I had a good opportunity to get in this afternoon. It felt like it was going to be a good batting wicket for us. There were some tough periods, but a really good position for the team now.

"There's a lot of noise that people can and can't deliver, but I just want to go out there and have fun and play like it. If you told 12-year-old Matt that he was going to score a Sheffield Shield hundred, he'd be pretty pumped."

He shared a 137-run stand with Khawaja, who made a fluent 69 in his first innings since the third Test against the West Indies back in July.

After Khawaja fell, gloving an attempted pull shot through to keeper Jake Doran off Kieran Elliott from around the wicket, Labuschagne walked in and picked up where Khawaja had left out. He took a while to get off the mark before striking six boundaries and a six in his 80-ball unbeaten 54.

Renshaw and Labuschagne added 111 late in the day and neither looked under any pressure. Earlier, Renshaw and Khawaja had to fight through a challenging new-ball spell from Jackson Bird but thereafter they looked untroubled as the sideways movement disappeared on the true batting surface under the Brisbane sun.

Renshaw struck 14 fours and a six while Khawaja found the boundary 10 times. Khawaja would be disappointed to fall in the manner that he did with a big score on offer. Labuschagne showcased some of the technical improvements he had made over the winter but Tasmania's tired attack that does not feature any real pace was in no position to test him.

Earlier, Neser picked up two of the last four wickets to help bowl Tasmania out having added only 80 to their overnight total. He had Nikhil Chaudhary caught behind for 14 and then produced another outstanding caught and bowled to dismiss Elliott. An offcutter caught the inside edge onto pad and it ballooned into the on side, Neser changed direction in his follow through and dived full stretch to take the catch having already plucked a stunning one-handed return to dismiss Jake Weatherald on day one.

Doran made a valuable 66 before he was bowled by Mitchell Swepson an Bird contributed 25, 20 of which came in boundaries.