Will Australia ever find a place for Glenn Maxwell in Test cricket?

RICHARD HINDS: Glenn Maxwell is the quintessential contemporary short-form superstar — but will Australia ever find a place for him in Text cricket?

Since 2010 Glenn Maxwell has represented Fitzroy Doncaster, Victoria, Australia, Melbourne Renegades, Delhi Daredevils, Hampshire, Melbourne Stars, Mumbai Indians, Surrey, Kings XI Punjab and Yorkshire.

He would have added New South Wales to his long CV in the spring but the transfer window had been slammed shut leaving one of the game’s most naturally gifted players at odds with Victorian team management.

Maxwell’s is the resume of the quintessential contemporary short-form superstar. You might call him a bat-for-hire although the mercenary connotation is spectacularly unfair.

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Maxwell may not have abandoned playing Test cricket. (AAP Image/David Moir)

As a brilliant exponent of T20s lucrative dark arts Maxwell’s bank account would leave the long-ago beneficiaries of the World Series Cricket revolution feeling like paupers. Any player — particularly one pigeonholed as a short-form specialist — would be insane to forego such riches.

Tried and discarded by Test selectors — and, this season, even by his state team for the opening Sheffield Shield game — Maxwell has every right to continue to take his talents to where they are handsomely rewarded.

But talking to those around him, there is no sense he has ever abandoned the idea of playing Test cricket. There is no valid comparison with those such as Chris Gayle whose first and last allegiance is to the IPL rupee.

Maxwell has at least attempted to calibrate his technique to the longer forms as his continued earnest — if not dominant — presence in Shield cricket underscores. Darren Lehmann highlighted Maxwell’s lack of recent Shield centuries.

Yet there are plenty who believed his credentials were more impressive than those of Nick Maddinson who was chosen for the Adelaide Test on potential rather than an imposing first class record.

Will Maxwell get another chance to show what he can do for Australia? (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images.)

You might even cast Maxwell as a victim of recent Australian team tactics. Until the sobering defeats in Sri Lanka and at home to South Africa, Boof’s Boofers had attempted to bludgeon their way to Test glory. Maxwell, in his bizarre and inevitably ill-fated cameo as a Test No.3 against Pakistan in the UAE, went down slogging as per team orders. He has not been seen at that level since.

But whether it is Maxwell’s technique and temperament, or merely his inability to make a compelling case for a Test return, he has been shoved back into that one day pigeon hole. There ‘Big Show’ plays the role of both hero and sideshow freak, depending on the inevitably meteoric nature of his performances.

Now Maxwell stands accused of disrespecting Australian team culture. His trenchant criticism of Victorian captain Matthew Wade for demoting him in the Victorian line-up was viewed as officially mutinous. Given the pair were about to play together for Australia, the timing was certainly not impeccable.

Pointedly when Maxwell took a catch to dismiss Kiwi slugger Martin Guptil on Sunday evening while fielding as a substitute, Wade did not rush to give his state teammate the customary pat on the backside. If the megaphone-mouthed Wade is Australia’s new coxswain, Maxwell is seen as the man who rocked the boat.

The portrayal seems wholly unfair. We have created a system that does not merely encourage individualism, but which celebrates and rewards it. In that context, Maxwell’s honest assessment of his plight with Victoria at least showed he cared about his place in the Sheffield Shield pecking order.

Certainly players are beholden to respect team culture. But Maxwell has marched to the beat of so many drums in the past six years he could be forgiven for forgetting whether to mark time or goosestep.

”Big Show” has always been his own man. (AAP Image/David Moir)

This is not to suggest Maxwell necessarily deserves sympathy. He is a massive beneficiary, not a victim, of cricket’s new multi-team reality. At the same time refreshing honesty must be tempered with tact in any team environment. Having forfeited his ODI place to Travis Head, he must now fight to get it back.

But as the BBL begins we will be reminded how both the new franchise model and the game’s shortest format encourage overt individualism. Players asked to serve so many masters will inevitably end up serving their own interests first. In that regard Maxwell is not the exception but the prototype.

Originally published as Will Australia ever find a place for Glenn Maxwell in Test cricket?