‘I haven’t given up’: Why Maxwell, Inglis have moved up in the Test queue

White-ball wizard Glenn Maxwell’s baggy-green dream remains very much alive, as the Test stocks of another World Cup hero Josh Inglis surge after his deeds in India.

Both Maxwell and Inglis beat fatigue to peel off 47-ball centuries against what is effectively India’s second XI in the revenue-raising Twenty20 series that followed Australia’s victory in the global tournament, underlining their value as batting aggressors in south Asia.

Glenn Maxwell had been firmly in selectors’ plans for the Test tour of India before breaking his leg.Credit: Getty Images

Maxwell leaves India with his legacy assured after starring in his second World Cup victory, but it’s in the Test arena where the superstar wants to shine brightest.

“I haven’t given up, I think I’ve just got to be realistic about the timings of the way I’ve been playing my white-ball cricket,” Maxwell said upon his arrival home in Melbourne on Thursday night.

“You play a World Cup and then you don’t play any Shield cricket, you play at the back end of summer in white ball and don’t play any Shield cricket, so it’s just the way it’s gone over the last 10 years of my career really.

“The two runs in the final were pretty cool. I don’t think anything’s going to top that. Even though there were moments during the tournament individually, I think that final ... nothing’s going to top that.”

Even before his wondrous feats of the past two months, selectors had told Maxwell he was in their plans for the 2025 tour of Sri Lanka, keeping open a door the freakish batter thought had been shut on him forever after he missed the series in India this year with a broken leg.

And Inglis’ batting composure in Australia’s hours of need during the World Cup – particularly when he kept out Keshav Maharaj and Tabraiz Shamsi during a tense semi-final chase against South Africa at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens – has put him firmly in the panel’s thoughts for Sri Lanka and beyond.

Maxwell will be 36 when the Australians are due to tour Sri Lanka in early 2025, an age when many would expect him to be one of the most prized guns for hire on the international Twenty20 circuit.

Though one of the most recognised names in the game’s shortest form, Maxwell cherishes the traditional format – even if his baggy green has gathered dust at home.

Maxwell played the most recent of his seven Tests in 2017, against Bangladesh, but has been part of the current selection panel’s planning for tours of the subcontinent only to be denied by events beyond his control.

He missed the 2022 series in Pakistan to get married to his wife Vini, having planned the wedding around the tour, only for the Pakistan Cricket Board to reschedule the Tests. The couple’s initial wedding day was scuppered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Months later, he was left heartbroken after Travis Head defied the odds and passed a last-minute fitness test on his hamstring in Sri Lanka, denying Maxwell a fairytale return.

He was destined to play in the Border-Gavaskar series this year in India but a broken leg suffered in a freak accident at a friend’s 50th birthday celebrations last November consigned those plans to the dustbin.

With his dynamic strokeplay and crafty off-spin, Maxwell’s skills are invaluable on spin-friendly pitches on the subcontinent, particularly treacherous surfaces where the need to score briskly overrides traditional conventions of defence.

Until Usman Khawaja and Cameron Green cashed in on a batter’s paradise in Ahmedabad this year, Maxwell had been one of only two Australians to score a Test century in India since the infamous “Homework-gate” series of 2013. The other was Steve Smith.

“I think it is just mentally and a little bit physically, he’s come back from quite a bad injury and 50-over cricket tends to take it out of you,” T20 captain Matthew Wade said of Maxwell’s state of exhaustion after his century in Guwahati.

“He’s ready to go home, and a performance like that maybe didn’t happen if he didn’t know he was getting the opportunity to go home and rest. I’m really happy for him, his hundredth game. He found a way to bring his best and we’re happy he can go home and be with his family.”

Josh Inglis tonned up in Vizag.Credit: AP

Like Maxwell, Inglis was a member of the Test squad in Sri Lanka last year. It is possible that by 2025, Inglis may find himself chosen as a batter for the tour even if Alex Carey keeps the gloves.

Despite his dumping from the 50-over side, Carey remains the selectors’ first-choice wicketkeeper in Tests due to the neatness of his work behind the stumps – especially to Nathan Lyon. But at the World Cup, Inglis provided hard evidence to back up the estimations of selectors with the calm manner in which he negotiated several tricky batting assignments.

Apart from the showdown with the Proteas in Kolkata, Inglis made a decisive half-century against Sri Lanka at Lucknow in a game Australia simply had to win, and also chimed in with swift runs against New Zealand in a tight clash in Dharamshala.

Importantly, Inglis demonstrated the ability to use his attacking skills while also showing calmness and a sure eye in defence, trusting himself to play spin off the back foot rather than propping forward as Carey has done at times, most recently in the Chennai Cup game against India.

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