Cricket World Cup 2023: Glenn Maxwell’s 201 to lead Australia to victory was the greatest ODI innings ever played

At 7/91 chasing 292, Australia had a half a per cent chance of beating Afghanistan. Enter Glenn Maxwell with an unbelievable innings that is now our best ever writes DANIEL CHERNY.

Sorry Michael Bevan. You too Steve Waugh. Even Adam Gilchrist and Ricky Ponting have been put in the shade.

Glenn Maxwell produced the greatest innings for Australia, and possibly for anyone, in the history of men’s one-day internationals and it’s not even close.

No Australian man had made 200 in an ODI. No man anywhere for anyone had made a double ton in an ODI run chase.

For those landmarks to be breached in a World Cup match in which the Aussies at one point needed more than 200 to win with three wickets in hand ensures Bevan’s epics in Melbourne, Sydney and Port Elizabeth, Waugh’s salvation job at Headingley in 1999 and Gilchrist and Ponting’s respective World Cup final knocks must be resigned to fighting for the minor placings.

Glenn Maxwell struggled with cramp during his innings of 201. Picture: INDRANIL MUKHERJEE / AFP

When Maxwell broke the record for the quickest World Cup century against the Netherlands in Delhi a fortnight ago, it appeared he had played his signature innings. His masterpiece. One for posterity.

It turns out that was just the B-side of the single.

How to do justice to what happened at the Wankhede on Tuesday night?

The scorecard would be enough. They should print off copies and give them to schoolchildren.

These are the bare, ridiculous, video-game-like facts.

When Maxwell and Pat Cummins came together in the 19th over, Australia was 7-91 in notional pursuit of 292.

The Aussies were about to lose to Afghanistan for the first time, suffer one of their heaviest one-day defeats and leave themselves vulnerable to missing the final four of the World Cup.

Maxwell finished 201 not out from 128 balls and the pair combined for 202 – the highest eighth-wicket stand in men’s ODI history – of which Cummins produced 12.

The next highest score behind Maxwell was Mitch Marsh with 24.

No one wins from that position. Cricinfo’s win predictor listed the Aussies’ chances of beating Afghanistan at less than half a per cent.

It wasn’t about winning. It was about trying to avoid losing enough net run rate to jeopardise a semi-final position. Cummins and Josh Hazlewood said as much after the match.

However, Maxwell operates on a different plain.

He was by far the likeliest member of the Australian squad to miss a match after being concussed falling off the back of a golf cart.

But he was also probably the only one who could smack 10 sixes and 21 fours across an innings in which he almost retired hurt after suffering a full body cramp that made him writhe next to the pitch like a dying lizard.

Glenn Maxwell celebrates 150 against Afghanistan. Picture: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

It wasn’t chanceless and that added to the charm.

Maxwell was dropped on 24 by Hashmatullah Shahidi, and on 33 when Mujeeb Ur Rahman spilled a sitter at short fine leg.

In between times he was given out lbw for 27 to Noor Ahmad.

Maxwell reviewed speculatively then started making his way off after seeing two red strikes, only to turn back when ball tracking projected it was flying over the stumps.

Earlier, he had called for a quick single that left Marnus Labuschagne run out.

Aided by Cummins’ ever-calming presence, Maxwell started to play his shots.

Out came the reverses, the flicks, the powerful drives, the slogs through the on-side. No part of the ground was safe.

Once it began there was no stopping it, even when he had to shuffle for singles and then eventually stay at one end of the ground to protect his flagging body.

He wasn’t facing mugs, either.

Afghanistan had won four matches at this tournament and with the quicks having cleaned up Australia’s top order, superstar Rashid Khan had barely started his allotment when Cummins and Maxwell joined forces.

Glenn Maxwell speaks to the media after he hit the winning runs. Picture: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

Earlier in the night, Australia’s batters had been undone by a lack of footwork against the moving ball.

Maxwell, conversely, could barely walk but clubbed the ball all over the place despite his limitations.

So restricted was his movement by the end of the evening that it was deemed too hard for him to walk down a flight of stairs to talk to the media, let alone cross the field of play for a press conference.

About the only way he would have been able to get there comfortably was with a golf cart but he said he was going to steer clear of them for a while.