Snap goes Maxwell tour
Broken leg makes India selection unlikely
GLENN Maxwell concedes he is only a slim chance of making a return to Test cricket next year in India, revealing the details of a horrific accident that resulted in a broken leg.
Maxwell lay in agony for almost an hour, friends erecting a small tent over his prone figure to protect him from the rain after the freak mishap this month.
The cricketer was at a birthday party for his Fitzroy-doncaster Premier Cricket side in a small yard with synthetic grass made slippery by recent rain.
“One of my mates, who was also one of my schoolteachers, we were laughing about something and I pretended to chase him off somewhere,” Maxwell told Cricket Australia’s Unplayable podcast. “I reckon we both took about three or four steps out there, and both slipped at the same time. I just got my foot stuck a little bit, and he fell, unfortunately at a really bad angle and landed straight on my leg.
“It just snapped. I heard and felt every part of it. It was pretty painful. I was screaming a bit and he was like, ‘Please tell me you’re joking, please tell me you’re joking.’ ”
Maxwell said his friend was devastated.
Friends were hesitant to shift the cricketer and erected a tent in the backyard because it was raining. After 50 minutes a doctor advised them to drive him to hospital.
“I probably didn’t sleep for two days while I was in agony,”
Maxwell said. “I shattered my fibula. So that one I think was the first snap I heard. It was snapped in half, but it also shattered through the bone.
“There was a bit of a chip off the tibia as well (and) I ruptured all the ligaments on top of my foot as well … the syndesmosis ligaments, they’re all ruptured. I did a good job of it for such an innocuous thing.
“This is the frustrating thing about it all – I’ve done some dumb things on the field, some dumb things off the field, and I’ve never even come close to injuring myself (like this).”
Maxwell is realistic about his chances of making the India tour.
“There’s a time limit on when they’re going to announce that squad to India and, to be fair, there’s a high chance that I won’t make it,” he said.
“They’re obviously going have to see me playing cricket and they’re obviously going to have to take a big risk if they do
take me. But I think that’s probably why I don’t want to sort of set any dates or timelines of when I can get back. I would dearly love to be OK for that but I’m a slave to how my body recovers.”