Leaving Glenn Maxwell out of the Sri Lanka Test tour wasn’t the hardest call for Australia’s selectors.
That unfortunate honour instead went to Peter Handscomb, who trained with the squad during the SCG Test but found himself overtaken by Nathan McSweeney when the 16 berths were finalised by George Bailey a few days later.
Glenn Maxwell during his last Test match, in Bangladesh in 2017.Credit: Getty Images
Nevertheless, Maxwell’s omission felt like the end of any notion that he might play more Test cricket. At 33, Handscomb will still be around the mark when Australia next go to India in a couple of years’ time. At 36, Maxwell almost certainly will not.
That sense of finality came with a parallel sense of loss. For well over a decade now, Maxwell has been one of the most outrageously gifted cricketers in the world. Yet in Test match terms, his sole century against India in Ranchi eight years ago leaves Maxwell on the same rung of the ladder as the likes of Brad Hodge, David Hookes, Martin Love, Kurtis Patterson and … Jason Gillespie.
Maxwell’s seven Tests spanned four years and four tours, two to India and one each to the UAE and Bangladesh. The last of those, in Chittagong in late 2017, provided Maxwell with the solitary Test match win in which he played.
After a surprise defeat in the first match of that series in Dhaka, this was an underrated victory for a team under huge pressure to succeed, in what Maxwell has recalled as “some of the hottest, most sapping conditions imaginable”.
From there, Maxwell was in several squads but never to play again. He was called in as injury cover for Shaun Marsh at the start of the 2017-18 Ashes, and coshed a double century for Victoria against New South Wales soon afterwards. Next he was a reinforcement to South Africa following the sandpaper scandal.
Suspensions for Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft suggested that Maxwell would be included when Australia went to the UAE to play Pakistan for Justin Langer’s first Test series as coach. But he was left out, after mangled communications between Maxwell, the selectors and team performance boss Pat Howard. In his recent book, The Showman, Maxwell’s anguish about that turn of events is splashed boldly across the page.
“It was such a cruel blow and underpinned with such dishonesty,” he wrote. “It was handled abysmally by all involved. The year that promised so much instead left me empty.”
This is not to say that the alternatives were inferior. Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne each made their debuts on that tour, and have gone on to be comfortably the best Australian Test batters of their generation.
Glenn Maxwell tears into the Hobart Hurricanes attack at the MCG.Credit: Getty Images
But during Langer’s period in charge, Maxwell was a Cavalier in a team set-up that much preferred Roundheads. Four years drifted by without any real hope of a recall. When Andrew McDonald and Pat Cummins took over in 2022, Maxwell regained hope, only to miss selection in Sri Lanka by the narrow margin of Head’s healing hamstring.
A freakishly broken leg then cost Maxwell any chance of going to India in 2023, though it also served to make his ODI World Cup one of the most memorable comebacks of them all. This Sri Lanka tour beckoned as one more chance, but a combination of soft tissue injuries and the march of time compelled Bailey and company to leave Maxwell in the shop window.
Rather than Maxwell, the selectors picked 21-year-old Cooper Connolly, the West Australian prodigy who has plenty of promise and, vitally, bowls the left-arm orthodox spin so prized in south Asian conditions. Had he bowled with the other hand, Maxwell would have played far more often.
“I’m a batting all-rounder. I think my batting is my strong suit at the moment, but hopefully my bowling, I get there in the future where I can be classified as an allrounder,” Connolly said overnight, recalling the dreams of a young Maxwell on his first Test trip in 2014.
In an alternate universe, there is little doubt that Maxwell would have found the tools to be a Test player of quality. One measure is that for Victoria, his 2888 first-class runs from 44 matches at an average of 42.47 compares favourably with the record of David Warner (1565 runs at 43.47 in 22 matches).
Instead, though, Maxwell can take solace from what he has made of the BBL. The past couple of weeks have seen a starburst of audacious shots and superbly calculated innings for the Melbourne Stars, turning a seemingly hopeless campaign into a late run to the tournament finals.
Time and again, it’s been Maxwell’s performances that the BBL has leaned on for box office appeal and even the perception of legitimacy.
Other privately owned leagues have hoovered up masses of overseas names who once made Australia their southern home. And Cricket Australia’s unshakeable belief in running Tests and BBL alongside one another has made it impossible for red-ball regulars to be anything more than cameo players for their clubs.
On Wednesday, Maxwell and Warner will be the two players that spectators and television viewers choose to watch when the Stars face Sydney Thunder in a knockout game. To Seven and Foxtel, who have the pair signed up as commentary talent, this is a godsend.
Of course, to have Maxwell taking part in the pointy end of the BBL isn’t the same as imagining what he might have become in Test match terms. But it will still be an opportunity to watch his brain in fast-forward, his tungsten wrists snapping through the ball, and his delight in team success. That’s plenty to be grateful for.
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