Glenn Maxwell responds to Test snub with his bat

Glenn Maxwell seems precisely the sort of bloke Justin Langer could whip into shape

Glenn Maxwell plays a shot in the opening game of the JLT Cup in Townsville yesterday. Picture: AAP.

A curiosity of Justin Langer’s snubbing of Glenn Maxwell for the Test series against Pakistan is that the Victorian seems precisely the sort of bloke a coach could whip into shape with the kind of tough love and uncompromising demands that Langer provides.

Langer’s successful nurturing of the Marsh brothers within his heavily regimented Western Australia framework has proved that he can turn any old underperforming players into athletes of more substance.

Mentors dream of getting their hands on erratic geniuses like Maxwell, wringing their necks, kicking their backsides and finding the mental cues to allow their individual freedom of spirit to coexist with the responsibility to knuckle down for the team.

Maxwell is miffed by his non-selection for a Test squad thrown wide open by the unavailability of the sandpaper kids, Steve Smith, Dave Warner and Cameron Bancroft, and he’s made a decent response to Langer by making a measured 80 off 91 balls for Victoria in the JLT Cup yesterday.

Given Langer’s pointed remarks about the 29-year-old Maxwell’s lack of centuries, however, the ditched allrounder may have needed another 20 runs to get the attention of the Test coach. Yet a good knock is a good knock in anyone’s language and if Maxwell’s brushing from the Australian touring squad serves only to rev him up and trigger an industrious season, it may end up a masterstroke from Langer.

There are things that can happen only to Maxwell. He can play the most impossibly entertaining innings, hitting an entire highlights reel full of classical strokes with a textbook technique. And he can produce the most perplexing knocks, too, losing his wicket to a left-handed reverse sweep while standing on his head, or similar.

There’s intrigue at the thought of what a disciplinarian such as Langer may be able to get out of a gifted player such as Maxwell if they spend some time together. For now, Langer is not interested.

Maxwell’s purring 80 was one of a number of surprises. Another was that the JLT Cup, and another cricket season, had actually begun. It hasn’t suffered from overexposure. NSW discard Nic Maddinson made his debut for Victoria. He racked up 68 in a 101-run partnership with Maxwell.

Another Test batsman unwanted by Langer, Peter Handscomb, made a duck. Victoria (240) won by 13 runs after Will Sutherland, the son of Cricket Australia boss James Sutherland, took 5-45. In some hit-and-giggle form of the game, Sutherland will play for Australia this summer. Perhaps with Maxwell. Perhaps, not.