Is Glenn Maxwell the Big Show or a no-show?

I’m blaming other players for the fact we’re losing, not for Maxwell’s ‘failures’. I also don’t agree that he’s been failing, in the context of the role he’s been playing and the circumstances in which he’s often coming in. He’s the least of our ODI concerns right now.

Maxwell apologists always blame other players for Maxwell's failures.

Ya reckon? Comparing him to Shaun Marsh who has had endless amounts of opportunities in prime batting positions and in perfect conditions was laughable IMO. The fact Maxwell is at his most ineffective batting after 5 is bizarre. Scary thing is Maxwell opened the bat once and scored 51 not out at SR. 145. He's opened T20 twice and averages 211 runs at a SR. 224. Batting at 6 Marsh averages 70.5 at a SR. 84. which is better than his career average 40 and SR 81.9?

Smith?!?? wanna critique his last 15 innings and then justify his inclusion?

Your whole logic is flawed. Why are you just targetting him when the whole team is full of serious underperformers?. It is only in the 3rd ODI where he can be blamed for getting out playing a poor shot when the situation demanded to stay there,but he played certainly better than others except Handscomb. If you want to drop Maxwell based on this,why dont you analyse how other batsmen performed in the series who basically didnt do anything apart from scoring subpar scores at snails pace. According to you, just because he is talented,if he does not perform upto his talent level he should be dropped.Then why not drop the other whole bunch of undertalented and underperformed guys. In the 2nd ODI, he got out in the 47th over trying to post a good total having already made 48(39) and he was not the last recognized batsman to be dismisssed.Shaun Marsh was there at other end who got out in the same manner just after 2 balls.Then going by your logic,it is Marsh who is to blamed for not staying till the end. In the England series last year,he was not even there except for the last match and still for all the humiliating defeats in the last two years,he is the only one to blame..haha...nice joke. And also please check what are the batting ranks of other guys in the team,you would find some satisfaction with 34

Australia were headed for 260 before Maxwell lifted the run rate, which caused Marsh to pick things up too. You can't have it both ways. If you want Maxi to be a finisher, then he won't be scoring 48 off 39. He'll be scoring 30 off 39. The third game we were a long way behind. He was trying to lift the rate and give us a chance of winning. Hanging around until the finish scoring 4.5 per over wasn't going to do that.

It was a 3-match series. Why do you keep talking about the second ODI? No one is arguing 5-260 is a good total (although arguably total of a team depends on many things and not just the players). That is such an arbitrary number and it goes ahead your argument because Australia were bowled out for 230 in the third ODI... Had Maxwell, as the last recognised batsman, stayed at the crease, we'd have pushed on to a much bigger total. Again, this is the third time I am bringing it up and you are yet to acknowledge, but did you watch how he piled those 26 runs in the third game? That's how he needed to play. Refer to my original comment. Maxwell had a disappointing series all things considered and he's a better player than that. I don't have more to add to this discussion as I've made my points clear and it's starting to get repetitive.

Why is Dhoni in the equation here at all? You’re not arguing against my points which is about Glenn Maxwell but anyway… the job of closing out an innings is responsibility of the last two recognised batsmen if many wickets have fallen at that point – this is a general fact because the job of the bowlers is to bowl. If not many have fallen, it is still the responsibility of players at the crease at that point in time (as they are set in and what not) but if they cannot get the job done, the thing is there’s a safety net with yet more batsmen to come and pick it up. Hence, Dhoni’s job – whilst he does it so often doesn’t have to be to close out the innings because if he happens to get out, there are other capable batsmen in the Indian line-up to get the job done, whereas there are none after Maxwell in our line-up. I'm talking about Dhoni because there's this sudden fascination with "closing an innings" and I'm sure it's related to Dhoni playing a couple of good innings. Maxwell's job in Adelaide was not to be there for the 300th delivery of the innings. It was to pile on runs, which he did admirably scoring 48 off 39. In the 2nd and especially the 3rd ODI, knowing the tail would be following him, he needed to stay there, play less risky shots but yet rewarding shots. Again, watch how he scored those 26 runs. See, this is the thing, you are mentioning that 48 off 39 but completely forgetting about the 3rd ODI where we needed him even more. The only way you score 48 off 39 is if you take risks. By scoring 48 off 39 rather than 48 off 60, he gave the tail and Marsh an extra 21 deliveries to throw the bat at the ball. You have to take risks to win in ODI cricket in 2019. You won't win posting a safe 5 for 260.

No, the argument is that you don't discard one of the few blokes in the country who has the ability to change the dynamic of an innings in order to bring in another plodder, simply to cover for other failings in the batting lineup. Maxwell's 'cameos' are not 'resulting' in losses. If our top order was working then he'd be putting the icing on the cake, and if our top order's not working then we aren't going win much regardless of what Maxwell does or doesn't do. Better to give yourself a chance of a competitive total than just accept sub-par scores. Not sure where you got 10-25 balls either - he faced 61 balls in the series for two dismissals, at an average of 30.5 balls (basically half of a 10 over partnership) and 42.5 runs per dismissal.

The argument surely is; can Australia afford the luxury of a batting spot anywhere in the top 7 where a 10-25 ball cameo 'to up the run rate' still results in losing 12 of 14? I would've thought a country with 5 World Cup wins on 5 continents knows better. Surely just the 12 loses is recent enough proof to discount that game plan. If, as the last recognised batsman, he leaves overs or balls unplayed then what is the actual run rate being chased anyway?

Why is Dhoni in the equation here at all? You’re not arguing against my points which is about Glenn Maxwell but anyway… the job of closing out an innings is responsibility of the last two recognised batsmen if many wickets have fallen at that point – this is a general fact because the job of the bowlers is to bowl. If not many have fallen, it is still the responsibility of players at the crease at that point in time (as they are set in and what not) but if they cannot get the job done, the thing is there’s a safety net with yet more batsmen to come and pick it up. Hence, Dhoni’s job – whilst he does it so often doesn’t have to be to close out the innings because if he happens to get out, there are other capable batsmen in the Indian line-up to get the job done, whereas there are none after Maxwell in our line-up. In the 2nd and especially the 3rd ODI, knowing the tail would be following him, he needed to stay there, play less risky shots but yet rewarding shots. Again, watch how he scored those 26 runs. See, this is the thing, you are mentioning that 48 off 39 but completely forgetting about the 3rd ODI where we needed him even more. The fact is, had he stayed there for the remainder of the overs in both 2nd and particularly the 3rd ODI, even if he had striked at a lower rate, we would’ve still had higher overall team total (so no, he isn’t being selfish, he’s taking the game deeper). Not just that, finishing not out would’ve given him better chance to be promoted up the order in future games which is what I’d like to see. However, the fact that he got out before the end of those 2 innings tells selectors that Maxwell is getting enough overs to do what he can to his absolute potential – this is a fallacy that I do not agree with because I believe Maxwell would play with a different mentality if he was batting up the order in the middle of an innings. He is much more capable than what he is put out to be, but getting out in 2nd and 3rd ODIs was his own doing and that didn’t help his cause to get promoted up the order or be in contention for Test cricket.

So Dhoni's job is not to close out an innings because he comes in at #5? The fact is in game 2 Australia were headed for 260 until Maxwell lifted the run rate with a brilliant 48 off 39. We just have a different perspective I suppose. A quickfire 48 late in an innings is a brilliant innings. You would have been happier if he made 48 off 60 and batted out the innings. If anything it was Marsh's job to see out the innings. He got out playing a risky shot two balls later.

Dhoni and his strike rate of 73? How does a bloke with a strike rate of 73 outplay someone with a strike rate of 140. The problem Australia had was FInch with his strike rate of 48 faced almost as many balls as Maxwell. Dhoni almost lost India every match. Match 1 despite Sharma scoring 133 of 129 they lost by 30 runs. Second match Karthik had to produce 25 off 14. 4 balls to spare Third match Jadhav 61 off 57. 4 balls to spare. So Dhoni's partners at the end had to compensate for him. If they had score at 73 like Dhoni they would have lost 2 and 3

It’s not an ‘obsession’, as a number 7 batsman with no one else to come after him, it’s important for him to be circumspect. Unfortunately, that’s his role in the team at the moment, to close out an innings (which I firmly disagree with and have because he’s much more than just a hitter), that is expected of the very last batter in the team. It’s exactly how it works. Exposing the tail towards the end of an innings does not allow the team to go hard. …If Australia finish an innings with 5 wickets in hand batting first, it’s very likely that they’ve left runs on the table because they haven’t taken enough risks. – That’s a very blanket statement to make. You are discounting the very possibility that the players played well with high strike rate (yes this happens) for one. You are arguing against comments that I did not make. The scoring rate depends on many things such as the condition of the pitch and the bowling attack and not simply the batsman.

Haha this is laughable. We’ve got so many problems with our team at the moment and Maxwell is the least of them. Assuming this was just click bait.

Cheers Paul, that's a very considered response. My first issue with both those teams is the lack of batting depth - Cummins at 8 is a very weak one-day batsman (he averages only 12 with the bat in his 62-game career). Cummins really is a number 10 batsman at ODI level, number 9 at a stretch. The same goes for Starc. When you have a very weak tail like that it makes it hard for the top 7 to bat instinctively and take the bowlers on - this has resulted in Australia regularly batting out their full 50 overs yet make poor-to-middling totals of 270 to 290. The issue I have with the second team is that the top 7 is very poorly balanced. In that it only has one genuinely dynamic batsman - one guy who can really blast boundaries - and six guys who are either accumulators (like Handscomb, Carey) or guys who start slowly and then build momentum later (Finch, Khawaja, SMarsh and Patterson). And to make it even more unbalanced, in my opinion, your only big hitter Stoinis is batting at three where he will have more expectation to bat responsibly. Big hitters need to either open (and go after the new ball in the Power Play) or bat down at 6/7 to finish the innings with a bang. At a minimum you need two dynamic strikers in your top 7, and preferably three. Here are the ODI scoring rates of that second batting lineup you proposed: Finch - 5.3 runs per over Khawaja - 4.8 Stoinis - 5.8 SMarsh - 4.9 Handscomb - 6.1 Patterson - 4.7 Carey - 4.5 So, combined, that top 7 has scored at just 5.15 runs per over across their ODI careers (or List A career in Patterson's case). That run rate equates to a total 257, which is miles below par in most circumstances in modern ODIs. To get back to being an elite ODI team Australia need to be regularly scoring 320+ and that above lineup would need to really have all the stars align to make 320+ My last point would be on the difference between picking someone like Patterson instead of Maxwell, as you did there. What Maxwell does is give his teammates more time to score runs because he chews up so few balls. Because of Maxwell's strike rate of 122, Maxwell's average innings across his career works out to 32 from 26 balls. By comparison, for Patterson to make 32 it takes him 41 balls (based on his career strike rate of 78). So in this scenario Maxwell chews up 15 less balls, which his team mates can use.