Former Australia opener, whose transition to the commentary box has been swift after his retirement, has slammed Glenn Maxwell over his interest in playing Test cricket. With Australia set to tour Sri Lanka for a two-match Test series in early January, Maxwell had expressed his interest to play Tests on the tour.
A couple of weeks back, Maxwell said that he wished to be part of the red-ball squad on that Sri Lanka tour with his past success in the sub-continent helping his case.
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The 36-year-old Maxwell copped a hamstring injury in the field during the Pakistan series, and it hit his plans to feature in a couple of Sheffield Shield matches for Victoria before the Big Bash League season in mid-December.
“The week or so leading up [to the Sri Lankan Tests in 2022] is probably the most fun I have ever had in practice and training, going into different conditions, working out different strategies and trying to implement them against your own teammates,” Maxwell said on the Sydney Morning Herald.
“My tactics will be exactly the same as I have played it in Tests in the past, backing my strengths and trying to have a really solid defence and back scoring options around that,” Maxwell said.
Maxwell was close to being selected for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series in India last year, but a freak accident a friend’s birthday party sidelined those plans. With another sub-continent tour in the offing, one that is crucial to Australia’s World Test Championship final ambitions, Maxwell is hopeful of another comeback with his potency with the ball an added advantage.
However, former teammate David Warner was quick to shut down Maxwell, questioning his ambitions to play Tests for Australia with little red-ball cricket behind him.
“If you’re not being picked for your Shield team, then why do you deserve it? You’ve got to actually want it, to want to play four-day cricket,” David Warner said on Code Sports about the Glenn Maxwell selection possibility.
Maxwell has played 69 first-class games, scoring 4147 runs at an average a shade below 40. He has seven hundreds and 24 fifties with one of the tons coming in a Test match in the sub-continent, in India, seven years ago.
He hasn’t appeared in the Shield games in the 2024-25 season thus far for Victoria with the injury during the Pakistan series cutting down his hopes. His last first-class appearance was in a County game in July 2023 for Warwickshire, where he made a 67-ball 81 in the first innings from No.6.
He played one Shield game in 2023 for Victoria, making 5 and 0, but his appearance before that dates back to 2019.
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