Australia's batting Picasso: Glenn Maxwell

It’s fair to say there is a bit of angst in my family at the moment regarding Glenn Maxwell.

The infallibility of the 26-year-old in the selectors’ eyes has moved beyond well ‘picking on potential’ and is bordering on the cricketing equivalent of doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different outcome.

The following is an actual text message chain, recorded between a cricket fan and his father on Sunday, 23 November at 6:45PM, about Glenn Maxwell.

Father
Get rid of him!!! 
Maxwell

Cricket fan
Yeah that had to be the 
last chance
Unreal.

Father
Cannot believe 
our [redacted] selectors!!!!!
That has to be it though, 
came in needing 35 off
 60 and still tried to flat
bat off a good length! [redacted] slogger and useless!
Wow and still not over! If we lose an even bigger
 indictment on Maxwell.
Useless. Far out I would
 start a petition

Cricket fan
They can’t pick him. If 
everyone is available, 
Clarke, Warner, Finch, 
Smith, Bailey, Watson 
are ahead of him.
 Cameron White too.
Both Marshes as well.

Father
And someone playing 
second grade in Darwin.
 He is seriously useless.

Maxwell has played 36 ODIs, batting in 35 of those and bowling in 31.

His batting average of 29.7 is ranked seventh out of the eight recognised batsmen or all-round players that played in Sunday night’s ODI. His bowling average of 41.1 ranked a distant seventh out of the seven bowlers or all-rounders that partook.

If Brad Haddin had been available to play instead of Matthew Wade, Maxwell would have been an all-rounder that was both the worst recognised batsman and worst recognised bowler in the line-up on conventional average metrics.

The great man, Mr Richie Benaud, once said that to be considered an all-rounder you should be picked to do one thing (batting or bowling) at an elite level, and the other skill should be considered a bonus. Maxwell clearly does not fit those criteria, at least in the current Australian set up.

The time has come to put him out to pasture, at least until after the 2015 World Cup.

Maxwell rose through the ranks quicker than most Australian cricketers in recent years – save perhaps David Warner – with a reputation for an aggressive, Picassian approach to batting.

Making his debut for Victoria in the 2009-10 state-based iteration of the T20 Big Bash, Maxwell took two catches but didn’t make a run nor concede any as a bowler in his first game, and was benched after scoring 10 runs in his second.

Victoria won the tournament, boasting one of the strongest T20 squads ever assembled in Australia.

Maxwell was also a fixture of the Vics’ one-day domestic side, crashing what was then the nation’s fastest ODI fifty from 19 balls in helping his side overcome a 100-run deficit with 10 overs remaining against Tasmania.

It took another 12 months for Maxwell to break into the Victoria first class line-up, where his reputation as a strong hitter began to take hold. It didn’t take long for him to string a couple of big scores together, most notably a ton in early 2011 that was a blend of power and poise.

This form, coupled with his age, led to a birth in the Emerging Players Tournament in mid 2011, where the then mercurial talent scored 278 runs at an average of 39.7 in the three-day format.

But it was two incredible innings in the T20 format of that tournament that caught the Australian set-up’s eye – 110 not-out from 52 balls and 59 from 23 balls (which sandwiched a first ball duck).

Around this time, Australia was getting pasted in T20 cricket, as sides from other parts of the world cottoned on to the seemingly logical idea that hitting lots of boundaries is the most effective way to win T20 games. In case you weren’t aware, Maxwell hits a lot of boundaries when he’s on.

From there, Maxwell began building his career base mostly through the T20 game, suiting up for Victoria, the Melbourne Renegades, Dehli Daredevil, and Hampshire short-form outfits from late 2011 and 2012. This, plus some firework-ish innings in the domestic one-day scene, saw Maxwell make his ODI and T20 International debuts against Pakistan and Afghanistan in the UAE.

A T20 World Cup birth followed, and that’s where the now eponymous title of ‘The Big Show’ was coined.

Glenn Maxwell described himself as Australia’s x-factor heading into the tournament. He was anything but, scoring eight runs from two innings with the bat and taking one wicket from seven bowling overs.

That didn’t stop a ridiculously outsized million dollar payday in the 2013 IPL auction. An 82 from 50 balls against the Sydney Sixers (compiled for the Melbourne Stars, who poached him from the Renegades, citing his potential), some reasonable form in a handful of List A games against touring sides, and a fluke-filled 51 from 35 balls in Australia’s demolition of the West Indies in Perth, likely earned him the seven figures.

Yet Maxwell again failed to deliver on the hype, batting twice for 36 runs and bowling a solitary over in the tournament.

A Test debut in India came shortly after following an ill-timed Shane Watson twang, with Maxwell picked as Australia’s primary spinning option in the two-Test series. He played a third Test in Australia’s recently completed series against Pakistan in the UAE, earning some very harsh words for his lack of poise at number three in both innings of Australia’s record loss.

His overall record speaks volumes to his career arc to date – a player, finding his feet, not quite master of his craft. That he has a higher first class average than many of Australia’s established international batsmen speaks to his potential.

Glenn Maxwell’s game, at the most basic level, is a blend of the thinking which has emerged in elite cricket circles over the past five years – power over poise, hitting for gaps in the field at all costs and having multiple options on defence (bowling and fielding).

He’s a new, prototypical modern Australian batsman, emerging from the unconventional path to stardom tread by David Warner.

Warner played for Australia before he played for New South Wales, as the story goes. He hit 87 on debut when T20 cricket was still finding its feet, and his career to date speaks for itself. In my view, Glenn Maxwell would not have made it onto the radar of Australian selectors had it not been for the rise of Warner.

A cursory look at the two would suggest their cut from a very similar cloth. In reality nothing could be further from the truth. To be sure, Warner hits with power – a lot of power – but he is also capable of great touch and timing, and in the past two years has developed a defensive game that has allowed him to flourish at test level against the best bowlers in the world.

Maxwell is not that. Like my Dad said, he’s a [redacted] slogger.

He struggles to keep his bat perpendicular to the ground – even in defence – and has lost some of the variety which led him to say the following, in 2012 upon being picked in the national ODI and T20 squad.

“I’ll still keep my natural flair but also rein it in when I need to and really be that rock if it’s needed,” he said.

“I’m looking forward to getting some opportunities in the batting order and looking forward to doing what the team needs from me in the right situations, whether that be quick runs or saving our arses.”

We don’t need to look particularly far for evidence that he’s become one dimensional. Maxwell’s score lines for the ODI series just gone read:

Not a lot to get excited about there. To be sure, he came in lower down the order. But there’s not much more in that table than a guy having a whack.

Even the regularly bland ESPN text commentators are sticking the boot into his poor play, with comments like, “You have to say that is not a good choice of stroke off your second ball” and, “No. Footwork. Whatsoever” as well as, “A Typical Maxi dismissal”.

Throughout his ODI career, Maxwell has been caught 20 times, bowled four times, been out thrice due to LBWs, suffered two run outs and a stumping. He’s been caught in a staggering two thirds of his dismissals so far throughout his career, while he averages just 21 balls per innings.

Since Maxwell made his debut, just 52 per cent of his innings have ended in catches, while the average balls per innings is almost 63 per cent higher for players batting one to eight in the line-up.

There’s pushing the envelope, and then there’s ripping the thing in half.

To be sure, Maxwell does hit a lot of boundaries, and from what we know he’s been told that’s his role. His 0.154 slugger rating (a fancy way of showing how many balls faced end up in boundaries), ranks fifth in the world since his debut for batsmen who’ve faced a minimum of 200 balls in ODIs.

Ahead of him lie Corey Andersen (0.217) and Jesse Ryder (0.203) of New Zealand (the former that guy who hit a century off 36 balls earlier this year), Boom Boom Afridi (0.159), and T20 journeyman Andre Russell (0.156) from the West Indies. When he’s on, he’s on.

And he’s a great fielder too – although who isn’t at the international level these days. He’s hyperactive in the cover-point region, has a great arm, and can definitely take a catch when required. Although try telling that to Mitchell Starc, who gave Maxwell the iciest of stare downs following an ill-advised ping at the non-strikers end in Sunday’s ODI.

Maxwell is only 26, still growing as a top flight cricketer let alone an international cricketer. There’s still lots of time for him to grow and develop his game. But it needn’t be in the international area, particularly with a World Cup kicking off in just three months.