How Australia learnt to apply ‘Max’ factor
With the aid of his friend as captain, divisive Glenn Maxwell is very much back in favour
There was a time when Australia would laugh at England for picking the person, not the player. This soon got turned on its head when Australia’s two best players, Steve Smith and David Warner, received year-long bans for their involvement in the ball-tampering scandal.
England, meanwhile, turned a corner in their own philosophy, opting for unorthodox picks such as Adil Rashid and Jos Buttler in their Test team. By contrast Tim Paine, a pleasant, upstanding presence, was quickly drafted in as Australia Test captain, despite questions as to whether he merited his selection.
Even Aaron Finch, who was soon handed the Twenty20 and one-day international captaincy, had been largely kept out of Australia’s white-ball side by Warner and Smith. And when Smith was captain, his unease about Glenn Maxwell, a brilliant but independently minded cricketer, was well documented.
Maxwell needed to “train a little bit smarter” was the phrase used by Smith to justify the Victorian’s controversial omission from the ODI side to face England in early 2018.
The English looked Down Under in mild amusement, as the deep trench formed by this particular Glenn swallowed all before it; never had there been a more divisive topic in Australian cricket. Was this Australia’s own Kevin Pietersen affair? Fortunately for them, it was not.
Finch started settling in as captain and this, it appeared, was key. “I suppose being close mates, with similar
interests off the field, we’ve known each other for a very long time, over a decade,” says Maxwell, who was Finch’s flatmate for several years. “And we talk about cricket a lot, we’ve got really similar ideas of the game.
“Even though we probably do clash because we are pretty, umm …” Maxwell hesitates, “emotional people. We can go at each other pretty hard. I think that gets the best out of each other.
“We are pretty honest with each other, that’s for sure. Whether that be just personality clashes, because we are both pretty much the same person, we are able to wipe the slate clean pretty quickly.
“This is just with Finchy, believe me. Just two really close mates being brutally honest with each other.”
Rob Quiney, Maxwell’s former state and international team-mate, agrees that Finch understands Maxwell more than anyone else.
“Finch said [to me], try and see things from his perspective,” the retired batsman relayed on local radio. “Instead of us thinking that [Maxwell’s approach is] not good enough, let’s find who the real Glenn Maxwell is. He’s such a family-orientated bloke, he loves his local club and he’s just cut from a different cloth. What he does is he challenges the game, he challenges through strategies and he thinks about the game.”
And that, Quiney said, is what makes Maxwell the force that he is.
In the pressurised cauldron that culminated in the ball-tampering affair, Smith’s own form had dipped. Forced into the ranks, he is back at his best. It may prove a positive transformation for the team, too; Smith can get on with what Smith does best, and Maxwell? Leave him to Finch.
In contrast to the Pietersen affair, it is not that Maxwell is disliked in the changing room. He is a popular, engaging figure. When told that Pat Cummins had just named him as Australia’s “X-factor player”, Maxwell blushes. “Aw, that’s sweet of him,” he laughs, before shouting across the room, “Thanks, mate!” Cummins shoots back with a wink and an ironic salute.
Maxwell, 30, is the first to admit that cementing his place in Australia’s new set-up is a two-way affair. Taking over the captaincy of the Melbourne Stars in the Big Bash League was one way to demonstrate this. A stint with Lancashire, in the Royal London One-day Cup, provided another opportunity.
“I think that Lancashire experience for the month was brilliant,” Maxwell says. “I would have liked to have scored more runs but I was really happy. I was able to spend some time at the bowling crease and get some real consistency going with that, so that’s probably been a big help for where I am now.”
“I probably had my starts
‘We can go at each other hard, that gets the best out of us. We wipe the slate clean quickly’
doubted a lot in previous history,” adds Maxwell, who at one time was scathingly nicknamed “The Big Show” for a tendency to play extravagant shots but not always at the most opportune moments.
“I was known for making not many or getting a quickfire fifty. But I felt really confident in the fact that I was actually getting starts and hitting the ball really well, and getting through those tricky periods.
“I gave myself a decent platform and thought, ‘All I’ve got to do is get through that and go on’. That’s what I have been doing at international level. I’ve had a really good run before this, I’ve had three really good innings coming into this World Cup, of 71, 98 and 70. I felt like I was able to control the back end of the innings really well, and that’s going to be key for me in this tournament.”
Maxwell, one of six players in the Australia squad to have lifted the trophy in 2015, is fully aware of the expectation that his versatility brings.
“I suppose, for me, it’s being able to bowl at any time with the ball and being able to bat at any
time with the bat,” he says. “I think that has probably been my strength over the last few months, being able to be thrown into any situation and be able to adapt to it.
“I have had seven or eight years of international cricket now and I have been thrown into a lot of different scenarios. I am getting to a stage where I am able to manage my way through those scenarios a little bit better and find the right option at different times.”
Australia, and Maxwell, after some trial and error, appear to have landed upon the right formula.
Far from this being the twilight of Maxwell’s career, which not long ago many were predicting, this could be the start of his next, most destructive phase.