Mercurial Maxwell calls time on memorable ODI career

The man behind some of Australia's most memorable one-day moments, Glenn Maxwell, has called time on a 13-year ODI career.

Maxwell today announced he was retiring from the first format he played for Australia in, all the way back in 2012, having scored almost 4,000 runs from his 149 ODIs.

The 36-year-old, who continues to manage the left leg he broke in an horrific 2022 accident, told selection chief George Bailey during February's Champions Trophy tournament he did not think he would make it to the 2027 ODI World Cup.

"I said to him right then and there, 'I don't think I'm going to make that'," the two-time ODI World Cup winner told the Final Word podcast.

"I think it's time to start planning for people in my position, to have a crack at it and try and make that spot their own for the for the 2027 World Cup. Hopefully they get enough of a lead-in where they can have success in that role."

Maxwell is understood to have made his mind up on his ODI retirement well before the finger injury that ruled him out of this year's Indian Premier League.

He now joins a mini-exodus of Australians from 50-over cricket after Marcus Stoinis and Steve Smith both retired from the format either side of the recent Champions Trophy campaign.

It leaves the reigning champions needing to find a host of new match-winners for their title defence in two years' time. Maxwell is the fourth member of the 2023 World Cup squad that won in India to bow out of ODIs, with David Warner having also pulled stumps.

The allrounder, who will continue to play T20s for Australia and has not called time on his first-class career, admitted the physical demands of the 50-over game had become too much.

"My decision to retire from one-day international cricket was probably more on the back of the first couple of games in the Champions Trophy," he said.

"I felt like I gave myself a really good opportunity to be fit and ready for those games. The first game in Lahore, we played on a rock-hard outfield. Post that game I was pretty sore.

"We were lucky enough to have a washout against South Africa, where I had a bit more time to have a bit of rest and get myself ready for the next game.

"The following game against Afghanistan, we fielded for 50 overs on a really, really wet outfield. It was slippery, it was soft, and I just didn't pull up that well.

"I started to (realise) that if I don't have the perfect conditions in 50-over cricket, my body just struggles to get through that.

"It feels like it's a tiring affair just to get through – and almost surviving – the 50 overs, let alone being at my best throughout that 50 overs, and then going out there and trying to perform with the bat as well.

"I felt like I was letting the team down a little bit with how my body was reacting to the conditions."

Maxwell will be as difficult to replace as any of Australia's recent ODI retirees.

The mercurial right-hander occupies a unique position among the ODI batting greats; of batters to have maintained a strike-rate above 120 (Maxwell finishes with a career mark of 126.70) only one other has scored more than 400 runs (Andre Russell – 130.22).

In fact, Maxwell goes out with the highest batting strike-rate in ODI history among any batter to have scored at least 2,000 runs.

Add in his two World Cup crowns (2015 and 2023), his off-spin bowling that netted him 77 wickets at 47.32, as well as his status as one of the game's best fielders, and it is clear Maxwell will go down as one of the format's legends.

His miracle ODI double-century against Afghanistan at the 2023 World Cup will be remembered as one of the best white-ball innings ever.

"This was a moment, like Steve Waugh's Ashes ton on the last ball of the day, or Michael Bevan's final four to beat the Windies. One of those events that makes you ask ‘Where were you when...'," Maxwell wrote in 2024 book, The Showman.

"It was crazy to think that I now had one of these, a moment when Australia was all on board."