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After years of being derided as an enigmatic cricketer, Glenn Maxwell finally is a consistent and outstanding T20 player.
Maxwell again proved he is Australia’s T20 MVP by batting his side to victory in India yesterday.
The Victorian’s knock of 56 from 43 balls, an innings of equal parts maturity and belligerence, steered Australia into a dominant position in the first T20I in Visakhapatnam.
In his past 30 T20Is, Maxwell has scored just under 1,000 runs at 45, while maintaining a scorching strike rate of 155.
To understand just how good those figures are consider that, in that period which extends back almost three years, no other T20I batsman in the world has managed to average 45 or better while also striking at 150 or better.
Among the top 30 runscorers in the world in that time, only five have equalled or bettered Maxwell’s batting average. But the combined strike rate of those five batsmen is just 131 (or 7.86 runs per over), miles below Maxwell’s scoring rate of 9.3 runs per over.
Glenn Maxwell blasted Australia to victory. (AAP Image/Mal Fairclough)
Ok that was a whole lot of stats I just threw at you. But they were necessary to understand just what a rare level Maxwell has operated at in T20Is over the past three years.
To address the assertion of my opening paragraph I’ll now have to hit you with two more stats.
Maxwell’s admirable consistency in T20Is is underlined by the fact that, over that aforementioned period, he has scored 30 or more in exactly half of his 28 innings.
What’s more is that when Maxwell makes 30-plus in T20Is it is genuinely valuable because of how quickly he does so.
His average strike rate across those 30-plus scores was an utterly scorching 172. In other words, when Maxwell makes 30-plus – something he now does regularly – he scores at an insane 10.3 runs per over.
No more Maxwell stats, now, I promise. But that was not an indulgent list of numbers for the sake of filling column space.
Instead those figures will surely have given you a new appreciation for just how incredibly effective Maxwell has become in T20Is.
That’s without even considering the value he adds as a world-class fieldsman and a canny and very under-utilised off spinner.
It is fortunate for Australia that Maxwell has stepped up to such an extent in T20Is because his captain Aaron Finch has tumbled into a deep form trough.
Since smashing the highest-ever T20I score with 172 against Zimbabwe in July, Finch has averaged just 11 from a dozen matches. During that same period Finch has averaged just 13 with the blade in ODIs.
Yesterday he fell in a familiar manner, trapped LBW for a duck by a Jasprit Bumrah delivery which moved back in at him.
International quicks are finding it remarkably easy to bowl to Finch in all formats at the moment because of his vulnerability to straight deliveries. Aim for the stumps and wait for the wicket.
Given that Finch is also the ODI captain, Australia desperately need for him to find some form in tomorrow’s T20I in Bangalore and then take that momentum on towards the World Cup in June.
Meanwhile, the Aussies will also hope that Maxwell can convert his commanding T20I form into similarly brilliant ODI touch just in time to light up the World Cup.