How Glenn Maxwell maintained his brilliance despite the knocks that came his way
GLENN Maxwell has taken so many knocks this summer it seemed his international career had received a knockout blow, but those whacks have been the making of him.
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IN just over 100 days of a career-defining summer Glenn Maxwell has racked up more than 1000 runs, all the while taking so many knocks he’d need Rocky Balboa to talk him through it.
“It’s not about how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward,” the ever-defiant pugilist memorably slurred as yet another fight came his way.
Maxwell, so gloriously and frustratingly talented, isn’t a first-timer playing the part of punching bag.
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More than most, the brilliant batsman has faced hit after hit through a perennially interrupted international career which has mixed brilliance with brain-fades at opposite ends of the performance spectrum and sizeable scrutiny to match.
But perhaps no whacks were more punishing than those during this summer. This time they seemed like knockout blows.
It was supposed to be time to cash-in after all that hard work done in tough situations, scoring his maiden Test ton through gritty defiance rather than hold-on-to-your hats hitting in India.
After an earlier failed attempt at securing his baggy green permanently because he wasn’t smart enough to grasp his chance, Maxwell looked part of the in-crowd again.
Then came the first whack.
He was not so much exited from the Test team as thrown out, his Ashes dream denied.
On the back of that ugly deletion from national consideration the anti-Maxwell voices started stirring the pot again.
He was unreliable, too inconsistent and the coach, Darren Lehmann, just did not like him.
The Victorian apparently did, and said, too many things that weren’t obviously wrong, but the wrong way.
Word started to spread that Maxwell didn’t fit the cultural ensemble Aussie captain Steve Smith felt comfortable with, no matter how many runs he made.
All that, however, was confusing news to the man himself, and seemed in contrast to his new approach to the game.
In Birmingham in June, Maxwell sat in the lobby of the team hotel during a bleak Champions Trophy campaign for all, and made a solid case for being reformed, renewed, and the model of a perfect cricketing citizen.
He told the Herald Sun about his maturation as a person and a player, and how he was shunning perceptions and irrelevant expectations with a view to seizing his opportunities.
Maxwell said he had a focus on being “the cricketer I actually want to be”.
That’s where the journey to now really began too, with a concerted effort to not just train hard, but to also maintain the path regardless of roadblocks.
Even though that mindset didn’t immediately turn into masses of international runs in the series that followed, two Tests in Bangladesh then a one-day series loss in India, Maxwell was not deterred.
He certainly didn’t enjoy missing the Test squad when it was announced last November either, and had some really emotional time with his family after that happened.
That counted double when Smith told the nation Maxwell had to “train smarter” after booting him from for the one-day squad. Yet another whack
On that occasion, confusion was the overwhelming emotion. He was training “as hard and smart as ever” he told people close to him.
But in neither instance did Maxwell lash out, nor did he move away from what had been working for him. That wasn’t the new way.
And believe it or not, the base from which he has finally re-assumed his place among the Aussie elite, a position franked by a matchwinning international T20 hundred, is a boring one.
“I don’t think Maxi has ever been a lazy trainer, he just hasn’t trained like the absolute greats. In the last 12 months he has done that,” said Trent Woodhill, list manager at the Melbourne Stars and a revered batting coach who has worked with the game’s best players.
“It might sound boring, but he now has a really set routine in what he does, and it’s allowed that consistency of form. Maxi has been consistent from July, and this 100 days, he has done the same thing every time he has trained.
“It sounds boring but every day is the same for him. He is now at a point where he enjoys his practice … and is ready to deal with whatever’s in front of him.”
Woodhill knows brilliance. He has worked with David Warner, Smith, Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Shane Watson and Virender Sehwag. They, like Maxwell, don’t exactly conform.
But they are consistent in what they do to be as brilliant as they are, which is a lot of the same stuff, a lot of the time.
No one in Australian cricket has ever doubted that Maxwell had the capacity to be in that company. Harnessing those talents, however, has been difficult.
Lehmann once said it would be a personal failure if he didn’t get the best out of Maxwell, but also took every opportunity available to drop him.
Woodhill said in the national set-up maybe it was too often a case of Maxwell bending to fit their training and playing ideals, when it should have been the other way around.
“Just because it’s the Australian team you shouldn’t be asking talent, and Glenn is top three in the country, to fit in. We should be asking him what he needs to get that performance,” he said.
There should, though, also always be an onus on the player himself to work out the right way to be his best, and now, at 29, Maxwell finally knows how to harness all his talents.
“There’s an extreme similarity among the best. The great players, Kohli, Smith, Warner, they do the same thing every day. They are a slave to making sure their ball striking is good. That’s how they maintain their consistency,” Woodhill said.
“Maxi, the last 12 months, his training sessions replicate really well. It means you are confident of success rather than hoping for it.”
It has followed too, through Sheffield Shield, Big Bash, now back on the big stage of international cricket.
He might be a bit bruised, but Maxwell has maintained his brilliance, and now, finally, Australian cricket is the beneficiary again.
“He’s got a Test hundred in India, a T20 hundred in Hobart, which is his second, and he’s the leading runscorer in the Sheffield Shield. The last 100 days have been good, but it’s been a good last 12 months,” Woodhill said.
“Now Glenn is in complete ownership of his game, and if he continues to do those things in the next five years there is no reason why he can’t equal Smith and Warner in terms of output. He easily sits in that company. He’s a freak.”
TO THE MAX
THE 112-DAY GLENN MAXWELL SUMMER RUN COLLECTION
Victoria - JLT One-Day Cup
12
Victoria - Sheffield Shield
7 & 20
60 & 64
4 & 45*
278 & 16
96
(590 runs @ 73)
Stars - Big Bash
8
4
50
33
60
31*
28
1
84
(299 runs @ 37)
Australia - ODI
34
Australia - T20 International
40*
103*
TOTAL
22 innings
1078 runs @ 59.88
Range Score
0-10 — 5
20-50 — 9
50-100 — 6
100+ — 2
Originally published as How Glenn Maxwell maintained his brilliance despite the knocks that came his way