Fantasy, frustration, folklore: The Maxwell ODI story

His favourite format is the longest, while he has been a pioneer of the shortest. Yet the story of Glenn Maxwell's dramatic career may best be told by his journey through cricket's in-between vehicle, one-day internationals.

Maxwell this week called time on his 149-game ODI career, walking away as a two-time World Cup champion and one of the modern era's batting and fielding trailblazers.

His crowning individual innings, his outrageous 201no during the 2023 World Cup against Afghanistan in Mumbai, is already a moment of white-ball folklore. It remains the only men's ODI double-hundred by an Australian, the first worldwide by a non-opener and the first in a run chase.

Yet Maxwell is the first to admit his path to arguably the greatest innings in the format's history, and the third of his three World Cup titles (having also formed a key part of Australia’s 2021 T20 championship), was littered with failure and frustration.

"I'm extremely proud of what I've been able to achieve for someone who almost tripped up and ended up in the Australian team," the 36-year-old told the Final Word podcast this week.

Maxwell did indeed come from obscurity to make his international entrance in 50-over cricket in August, 2012.

Described as a "lively allrounder" by then-selection chief John Inverarity, he had made headlines the previous year when he slammed the fastest ever half-century in the Australian domestic one-day competition in just his sixth List A match for Victoria.

His 19-ball effort in Hobart broke David Hookes' record from 1990 and stood until Jake Fraser-McGurk went one ball quicker in his record 29-ball ton in 2023.

Inverarity's panel took a flyer on Maxwell, picking him over another young spinning allrounder in Steve Smith for a white-ball series played in oppressive conditions in the United Arab Emirates. It scuppered Maxwell's winter plans to play for a pub cricket team in England.

After batting at four in his first international against Afghanistan, Maxwell settled in at No.7 and hit the winning runs on the way to an unbeaten 56no in a series decider against Pakistan.

The mettle he showed in handling the formidable doosra merchant Saeed Ajmal on dusty wickets was an early indication of his self-belief, bordering on naivety.  

"'Maxi' rolled up to our analyst to ask for a replay of a delivery we'd just been shown," Pat Cummins, reflecting on that 2012 series against Pakistan, wrote in his foreword to Maxwell's book, The Showman.

"Next time we were all waiting to bat, he declared, 'All good, I can pick his doosra no worries!' When it was his turn, he reversed Ajmal first ball – he'd picked the doosra, no worries.

"That's an encapsulation of the next 12 years we've spent playing for Australia. His endless confidence in doing things his way is something to behold."

Maxwell’s assured entrance foretold his outlier status as an Australian batter; one who was more comfortable on the subcontinent than at home. By the end of his ODI career, he would average above 40 with the bat in Asia, five runs higher than his mark in Australia and nearly seven more than his overall average.

While never as consistent or as prolific as his generation's other emerging white-ball batting stars, David Warner and Smith, Maxwell established himself as a new-age match-winner. Of the 27 ODIs in which he passed fifty, Australia lost just five times.

A few years into his ODI career, however, the Maxwell narrative had veered in a different direction. His preference for the unorthodox, speaking his mind in the media, as well as the public critique of his methods by the national team's hierarchy, positioned him as a lightning rod for criticism.

It took him 45 games to score his first ODI hundred, a 51-ball outburst in a 2015 World Cup contest with Sri Lanka, coming after his spot in the 15-man squad had been questioned amid a form slump. The death of Phillip Hughes earlier that summer had affected him greatly.

Maxwell's relief upon reaching triple-figures at the SCG was profound, sharing a tearful embrace with Shane Watson, his batting partner and emotional confidant.

"With Watto there, with Phil's 408 cap number written on the back of my bat, with all that had played out over the previous few months, I jumped into the big guy's arms and sobbed," Maxwell wrote in his autobiography.

"… it was this full circle moment for me as a player and a human being. There would still be moments where I'd grieve, and even now I find myself drifting there from time to time.

"But the heartbreak felt by all of us was turned into the energy we needed for the business end of the tournament."

Maxwell's vital role in Australia clinching their fifth men's 50-over crown preceded more personal turmoil. Perhaps not coincidentally, his frequent absences from the one-day team over the coming years corresponded with one of the side's leanest runs. 

His repeated axings from the ODI squad through 2016-18 also prompted a wider debate around the at-crease approach he took, and he admits the team suffered from his "individualised" approach to one-day batting.

His inconsistent returns were deemed sub-standard by successive coaches in Darren Lehmann and Justin Langer, as well as Inverarity’s successors, Rod Marsh and then Trevor Hohns.

"Those flashes obviously wore thin on the selectors that time," Maxwell said on the Final Word podcast. "If I had kicked on for a few more overs, the game is almost put to bed. I needed to make some more substantial scores.

"That was all part of the growing as a player and learning what I was doing at one-day level, because I probably didn't have that experience in one-day cricket for Victoria … I didn't know the game that well."

Australia's sub-par 2019 World Cup campaign was an on-field low for Maxwell.

Urged by Langer to work harder on combatting a supposed weakness to short-pitched bowling, which opposition fast bowlers were now routinely targeting him with, Maxwell spiralled towards the end of the tournament after an injury scare in the nets at Old Trafford.

Reflecting on the lead-in to Australia's semi-final defeat to eventual champions England, Maxwell wrote in his book: "I was nowhere near close to the right state to play, but didn't feel there was anything I could do other than front up and hope.

"My confidence was shot, positivity had vanished. I felt like the worst player in the team and drew the conclusion that everyone else must be thinking the same thing."

It took a mental health break, as well a shift in leadership of the national side, to finally unlock Maxwell's ODI best and herald his second coming in the format.

Initially under Langer, and then his coaching replacement Andrew McDonald, Maxwell prospered in one-day cricket either side of his horrific broken leg injury in 2022.

Between the resumption of international cricket during the pandemic in 2020 and the end of the 2023 World Cup, Maxwell averaged 48.47 from 27 ODI innings, held a strike-rate of 138 and scored three of his four career centuries.

Being tasked with a dedicated finishing role under one-day captain and close friend Aaron Finch proved a turning point ahead of a 2020 Covid-bubble tour of the United Kingdom.

"I remember training with Aaron Finch and Andrew McDonald in our own separate net at Junction Oval before heading over there," Maxwell said.

"They were starting to talk about my role in the side. 'Ronnie' (McDonald) basically said, 'We've looked at the stats. There's no one in the world better than you in the last 10 overs. So we've got to make sure that you're batting in those 10 overs.

"'So how do we do that? You're just going to bat at seven. We're not going to stuff around with the order'.   

"To have that role clarity before the tournament, and even see some of those stats and go, 'You know what? If that's what the team needs, I have to be there'. That was quite nice to have that clarity from the captain and the assistant coach at that time."

In the deciding match of that series against England in Manchester, Maxwell blazed a match-winning 108 from No.7 and shared in an Australian record 212-run partnership with Alex Carey.

Two more hundreds followed in his soap-opera World Cup in India three years later, a tournament that would give him his legacy moment in international cricket.

In the space of a fortnight, Maxwell scored Australia's fastest ever ODI ton (from 40 balls against the Netherlands in Delhi), courted international attention for getting concussed after falling off the back of a golf cart, and then hammered the game's second-fastest ODI double-ton while finishing his innings batting virtually on one leg.

All that coming before Australia knocked over heavy favourites India in the final.

While his batting heroics proved the tournament's show-stopper, the quiet faith placed in his bowling by McDonald and captain Pat Cummins ended up being even more important in Australia's turn-up in Ahmedabad.

The Rohit Sharma miscue that improbably landed in the hands of the sprawling Travis Head was induced by a Maxwell off-break from the last ball of the innings' Powerplay.

A few hours later, the boy from South Belgrave hit the winning runs to cement his spot in the pantheon of Australian limited-overs greats.