‘Serious and ruthless’: Glenn Maxwell is more than just a mercurial talent

In the days after his unbeaten, frankly unfathomable 201 against Afghanistan, Glenn Maxwell wasn’t so much the Wizard of Oz as the Tin Man. The cramps that prompted his incendiary display of stationary power-hitting meant missing Australia’s final group game, the gait still rusted over as he pushed his newborn son’s pram around the team hotel.

But after more massages than a Wagyu cow since that eruption of 21 fours and 10 sixes, the 35-year-old is primed to return for Thursday’s blockbuster semi-final against South Africa at Eden Gardens. And if the Proteas didn’t know it before he struck the first one-day international double century in a run chase, and from No 6 – turning a pig’s ear of 91 for seven into a silk purse of knocking off 292 – they are now fully aware that, until his wicket falls, Australia are not beaten.

The temptation is to simply call Maxwell a freak; a mercurial, knockabout bloke with the furry forearms of Ricky Ponting and more trick shots than Ronnie O’Sullivan. When Australia lost his services for the group game against England – Maxwell concussing himself by falling off the back of a golf cart – it did not come as a massive surprise. After all, it was only last year he broke a leg in two mucking about at a friend’s birthday party.

But underpinning that 360-degree game – and what led Maxwell to overcome that inability to run singles in the Mumbai heat – is a singular commitment to expanding his game by turning nets into a laboratory. It can look odd and, in the past, has been misunderstood. Even Steve Smith, a pretty singular cricketer himself, didn’t get it for a spell, excluding Maxwell from an ODI squad in early 2018 with the instructions to “train a bit smarter”.

“He is deadly serious and extremely ruthless,” Aaron Finch, the T20 World Cup-winning former Australia captain, tells the Guardian. “There was a misunderstanding for a time; he might be doing something in the nets that the normal player wouldn’t dream of.

“I’ve known him since his first year with Victoria. He was talented but so frustrating. But I didn’t understand him. It’s only when you spend time and start to understand him, you realise he doesn’t see the game the same way. You don’t get the genius by getting him to do the mundane. That’s the wrong word for normal practice – although it can be mundane.

Glenn Maxwell has brought his unorthodox approach to net practice too. Photograph: Indranil Mukherjee/AFP/Getty Images

“And what people don’t know so much is he has started coaching back home, a lot of girls’ cricket. He has a great knowledge of skill acquisition. A lot of supposedly mercurial talents can’t explain how they do it; an ability to teach it is pretty rare in geniuses.”

Finch actually wishes he had trained like his former flatmate back in the day, describing a wider aversion to unorthodoxy in Australia that may sound familiar to folks back in the UK. “When I started, I’d get kicked out of the net for hitting in the air,” says Finch. “One of my regrets was not exploring what was possible but you always worried about consistency. Then you become one of many similar players; Maxwell is one of one.

“So he’s very headstrong, because he’s had to withstand criticism for being inconsistent along the way. And there was also stuff about being called the ‘Big Show’ when he got his big [US$1m] Indian Premier League deal 10 years ago. It was a surprise, no question, but he didn’t put the paddle up in the auction; he didn’t call himself that.

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“People were envious but that’s not his problem. You are never going to get ultimate consistency like a Smith, a Joe Root or a Virat Kohli. But they also can’t do what he does.”

Not that Maxwell didn’t drive Finch up the wall at times. When Finch retired this year, Maxwell’s tribute thanked him for “countless blow-ups with me”. Like two rutting stags, they chiefly came when setting fields for Maxwell’s off-breaks; a second string to his bow that, by winkling out five wickets and going at under five an over in this World Cup, has been critical to an Australia team in India with only one frontline spinner, Adam Zampa.

Two days out from the World Cup semi-final against South Africa, with the woozy sun over Eden Gardens making way for the glare of the giant floodlights, Maxwell was back in his lab, mixing up all manner of reverse scoops, cross-batted swats and short-arm power bunts. Good fun but also deadly serious.