The allrounder has had a storied career, which he has now put into a book, but hopes there’s at least one chapter still to complete
Alex Malcolm25-Oct-2024The tone in Glenn Maxwell’s voice changes when he talks about Test cricket.It’s not what you would expect from the author of some the greatest innings ever played in coloured clothing for Australia. The 201 not out in Mumbai, which he relives in great detail in his soon-to-be-released autobiography , written with Adam Collins. The 40-ball century against Netherlands. The 51-ball 2015 World Cup century against Sri Lanka. The impossible chases of Old Trafford, Bengaluru, Guwahati and Hobart. Maxwell could quite rightly dine out on those stories for the rest of his days.There is a myriad of off-field stories, too, some deeply personal. The broken leg. The golf-cart concussion. Severe mental health challenges. A miscarriage. Maxwell speaks with honesty and vulnerability about all of it and how it has shaped him through his 36 years.Related
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But long after the words have been printed, and the book hits the shelves, Maxwell is hopeful another chapter will be written. He has not given up on his dream of adding to his seven Test matches.That sentence in itself is striking. He hasn’t played Test cricket for seven years. He has not played a first-class game since July 2023 and has played only two in the last five years.He is nowhere near the conversation to play in the upcoming series against India, despite a top-six spot being available. But the carrot of the Sri Lanka tour in January has been dangled in front of him and he is all-in on chasing it after coming within touching distance of a place in the XI on the 2022 tour.”I think if I gave up on that Test dream now, I don’t think I’d be doing justice to that younger Glenn Maxwell who was dying to put on the baggy green when he was a kid,” he tells ESPNcricinfo. “And I think while there’s still a glimmer of hope, I’ll keep going for it.”Maxwell’s Test career is currently a story of what might have been. There is a sense when you speak to him, and when you read his book, that his brief tastes, and the many near-misses on Test selection that he details, have built up just as much scar tissue as the hardware holding his broken ankle together.
“If I gave up on that Test dream now, I don’t think I’d be doing justice to that younger Glenn Maxwell who was dying to put on the baggy green when he was a kid”
“I think the hard thing with Test cricket is, when I grew up, that’s all I wanted to do,” Maxwell says. “I definitely got my chance at Test level a bit prematurely. It all happened really fast when I got my chance to debut. It was just a whirlwind. I had no idea what I was doing. I probably hadn’t had the experience at first-class level that I would have liked.”And then when I came back in 2017, I felt like I was a ready-made first-class cricketer and was really at peace with my game and where I was at. A lot of these things in Test cricket are timing. Adam Voges is probably the perfect example. He came in and he averaged 60-odd [61.87] in his Test career. He got his opportunity when he was at the top of this game.”I suppose the thing I’m proud about in my Test career – I was able to sort of fight back at different times, get back in squads and be really resilient that way.”Voges’ story is a source of inspiration for Maxwell. Voges made his Test debut at 35 and played 20 Test matches, scoring five centuries, including two doubles. However, he got his opportunity in 2015 after scoring 1358 runs at 104.46 in the 2014-15 Sheffield Shield season. Only three batters have ever had a better Shield year and scored more than his six centuries in a single season.Maxwell has only made seven first-class centuries in his 69-game career, including his lone Test century in Ranchi. The lack of hundreds has been used against him from a Test selection standpoint. It is a notion that irks him. He detailed a frustrating exchange with selector Trevor Hohns in 2017-18, when he backed up his March Test century in India with scores of 60, 64, 45 not out, 278 against an international-standard New South Wales attack, and 96 across four consecutive Shield games while batting at No.3 for Victoria.Maxwell brings up his Test century in Ranchi in 2017•Associated PressMaxwell queried Hohns on why he wasn’t considered to play in the Ashes.”The answer was blunt: not enough tons,” Maxwell writes. “It’s the only time I’ve come close to losing it in a situation like that.”Maxwell no longer has to worry about such sentiments among the current Australian selection panel. They have said publicly that Shield cricket bears no relevance to Test conditions in Sri Lanka. They have also said that Australia’s ODI and T20I specialists, who miss a lot of first-class cricket due to white-ball duties, should not have their lack of Shield cricket held against them.It is the type of bespoke management that Maxwell appreciates and has led him to making a quiet return to red-ball cricket via Victoria’s second XI, where he scored 14 and 10, before hopefully making his Shield return after the two white-ball series against Pakistan. The leg injury remains a big part of his careful management.Maxwell enjoyed the red-ball return without the pressure of needing to perform and believes he can get up to speed quickly to the rhythm of red-ball batting if he’s selected on the tour of Sri Lanka.
“I might sort of have this persona on-field where it all looks confident, everything looks all sweet, but it’s not always like that behind the scenes”
“The interesting thing about last week, even just playing the second XI game, was having a few technical changes and working through them, having a few different sets of eyes looking at your batting, and just trying to work your way through that has been really enjoyable,” he says.”I remember in 2022 [in Sri Lanka] the first couple of net sessions that I had working through all those cracks, and working through your different techniques of facing spin that’s exploding, was so enjoyable. And it doesn’t take long when you’re really experienced in those conditions to work out a way to play over there.”It’s probably what makes Cameron Green’s success over there so extraordinary, the fact that it’s the first time he’s played Test cricket over there in those conditions, and he was so successful and strong-minded in the way he was going to go about it. It takes a strong mind to have success over there. I’d just love to be over there.”Maxwell’s mental-health journey is fascinatingly recounted in the book. He is very open about the challenges he has faced throughout his career.”I hope people can get a better idea of the different anxiety I’ve probably had,” he says. “I might sort of have this persona on-field where it all looks confident, everything looks all sweet, but it’s not always like that behind the scenes. There’s so much that sort of goes into it, and there’s a lot of conversations, a lot of thoughts that are going on. And it’s not always as smooth as it seems.”1:43
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One of his darkest periods was between 2018 and 2020, which coincided with Justin Langer’s tenure as coach. Maxwell is not shy in outlining his turbulent relationship with Langer back then, detailing his personal perspective of a series of incidents, including his omission from the 2018 Test tour of the UAE, the 2019 World Cup, where he was subjected to a bouncer barrage in the nets that he felt was coach-directed, and a fiery exchange in early 2020 when Maxwell said the coach accused him of faking an elbow injury to miss a tour.But Maxwell sees a clear delineation between their relationship as player and coach and their friendship away from the game, which included a lot of golf and some great conversations about life.”We’re still on great terms,” Maxwell says. “We had a really good friendship, and I suppose his coaching tenure at the back end, I probably didn’t get out of him exactly what I probably needed at that time.”The other roundabout relationship he writes about is with Steven Smith. He reveals that the pair did not see eye to eye when Smith was the national captain. But Maxwell also notes he was partly to blame.”I’ve learned the amount that you invest in relationships is the amount you get back,” he says. “And I think potentially, looking back on early relationships, they might have been a lot of one way. I reckon I expected a lot of things to go my way, without actually investing back in.
“Maxwell queried [selector Trevor] Hohns on why he wasn’t considered to play in the Ashes. “The answer was blunt: not enough tons,” Maxwell writes. “It’s the only time I’ve come close to losing it in a situation like that”
“Steve is probably the one who we’ve come… probably not full circle, it’s never like we weren’t friends, it was we weren’t as close as we are now. Now we’re messaging most days, we play golf together, we enjoy each other’s company, and we spend a lot of time talking about not just cricket stuff, but off-field, real things as well.”Maxwell is as comfortable as he has ever been with his place in the world as a husband, a father and a cricketer. He is adamant his story is not completely told, and has no plans to retire anytime soon. He feels he is in the perfect head space to handle a Test match recall. But he knows there are no guarantees, and he says it won’t define his career.”I’m at peace with pretty much everything,” he says. “So it sort of makes it a little bit easier to go out there and not get too wrapped up in the moment, not to put too much pressure on myself to do certain things, and hopefully that just is able to bring out the best in me.”Whatever happens at the back end of this summer, whether I get picked or not, I won’t judge that as a tick or cross on my career. It’s just going to be another thing. As I said, I’d love to be over there, and if I do get the opportunity, I won’t be putting too much pressure on myself.”