Australia all-rounder Glenn Maxwell feels he needs to be realistic about his chances of playing Test cricket in a busy ICC schedule. Maxwell, one of the top performers for Australia in the World Cup 2023, signed off his tour of India with a sensational 47-ball hundred. This was Maxwell’s third sensational innings over the last month and a half, where the batter hit the fastest century of the ODI World Cup, only double century while chasing in ODIs, and now the joint-fastest T20I century for Australia.
“I haven’t given up on Tests,” Maxwell was quoted as saying by the Sydney Morning Herald upon his arrival here after being released from the T20I squad.
“I think I’ve just got to be realistic about the timings of the way I’ve been playing my white-ball cricket,” he further added.
Having made his Test debut against India in Hyderabad in 2013, the white-ball specialist has only played seven matches in his career and his last appearance was in 2017. He has a batting average of 26.07 and has taken eight wickets at 42.62.
It remains to be seen if Maxwell is named in their Test squad for the three-match home series against Pakistan beginning in Perth on December 14.
“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,” Maxwell said.
Matthew Wade, who is leading Australia in the ongoing T20 series against India, backed Maxwell to shine in the longest format of the game.”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,” Wade said of Maxwell’s state of exhaustion after his century in Guwahati.
