Glenn Maxwell and the Nature of the T20 Batsman

Glenn Maxwell has become the embodiment of the modern cricketer. Known for his brash, extravagant style, explosive batting and part-time spin, he is the archetypal Twenty20 player.

Like a mercenary soldier he has sold his skills all over the world. He has performed with mixed success in England’s T20 Blast, India’s IPL and Australia’s Big Bash.

As the saying goes, form is temporary, class is permanent. However, form is all that matters in T20 cricket. You are either scoring runs or you are not scoring runs.

At the moment Maxwell falls into the latter category. In his last 32 T20 innings he has passed 30 just twice. The burden of expectation is beginning to weigh heavily on his precocious talent. In the Big Bash recently he backed outside his leg stump before leaving his first ball, only to watch the ball demolish his stumps. 

His most recent innings, for the Melbourne Stars against the Sydney Sixers in the Big Bash, was a microcosm of his career. Maxwell walked out to a roar from the crowd inside the MCG and a graphic declaring him “The Big Show.” This is what everyone had come to see. No pressure.

The man in the spotlight knocked a few sensible singles before pleasing his supporters with a switch-hit his batting partner Kevin Pietersen, who was stood at the other end, would have been proud of. Several balls later he was walking back to the pavilion having mistimed a pull shot into the flood-lit sky. Promise unfulfilled.  

Dips in form hamper every batsman, indeed every professional sportsman, at some stage in their career. The problem for Maxwell is that T20 cricket does not allow time to construct a come-back. Its high octane nature and unquenchable thirst for entertainment dictates that, as the superstar entertainer he is billed as, he must tee-off from the word go.

In Test or ODI cricket he might be afforded time to cobble together a confidence-reaffirming innings. But in a format which allows a meagre 120 balls per side there is no time for such a selfish want. The Big Bash and IPL are unashamedly entertainment businesses—it is hit out or get out.

When on-song Maxwell is undoubtedly an excellent short format batsman: he scored 552 runs at a strike rate of 187 at the most recent IPL. He won four man of the match awards and hit the most sixes in the tournament.

Once he is in the swing of things he generally cashes in. He bludgeons the ball all-round the wicket. Brutal bottom-hand power aimed at the deep mid-wicket boundary is interspersed with sweeps, reverse sweeps and paddle shots.

Confidence is everything to a player of his nature. All it might take is a ball in the right area, a clearance of the front foot and a characteristic heave over the leg side for the floodgates to open.

T20 comes in waves. The game inspires erratic performances; huge totals are followed by low scoring scraps, centuries by ducks and five-fers by failures. Sport craves narrative—the repeated failure of one of the game’s most fabled T20 specialists only adds to the product.  

Maxwell, the million dollar man and the figurehead of franchise cricket, is exhibiting the ups and downs of modern batsmanship. If you live by the sword, you will often die by it; sometimes they end up 30 rows back, sometimes 30 metres up in the air. It is all part of the spectacle.