Glenn Maxwell voluntarily decided to offer his spot to another overseas player in the Royal Challengers Bengaluru XI after registering a string of low scores in IPL 2024, the Australian all-rounder said in an honest admission. Maxwell said he went up to RCB captain Faf du Plessis and the coaching staff to let them know about the “easy decision” of dropping himself from the XI to take a break to allow his mind and body to recover.
“The first few games hadn’t gone to plan. It was a pretty easy decision for me. I went to Faf and the coaches and said ‘I think it’s time we try someone else.’ I’ve been in this situation in the past where you sort of keep playing and dig yourself into a hole. Now it’s a good time to give myself a mental and physical break, give my body,” Maxwell told reporters in Bengaluru after the RCB vs SRH match at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
The dynamic all-rounder, however, kept the doors open for a comeback in the RCB XI in the latter half of the tournament. “Hopefully, if I’m required later in the tournament, I can be at my best mentally and have an impact for RCB,” he said.
Maxwell and Cameron Green, RCB’s two big Australian recruits have been a major disappointment in this IPL. Green was dropped from the XI after RCB’s match against RR on April 6 while Maxwell sat out from the run-fest against SRH on Monday. In six matches this year, Maxwell has scored just 32 runs at an average of 5.33 and a strike rate of 94. 28 of his 32 runs came in the match against KKR. He has registered three ducks in the tournament.
Maxwell’s poor show with the bat hurt RCB’s progress in the middle-overs. “We haven’t been playing as well as we would’ve liked to this season. The results are probably showing that. We have a big deficiency straight after the powerplay and the middle overs which has been a strength of mine in the last couple of seasons. I felt I wasn’t contributing positively with the bat. With our results and with the position we found ourselves in the table, it’s a good time to give someone else the opportunity. Hopefully, someone can make their spot their own,” Maxwell added.
RCB have decided to give England’s Will Jacks a go. He is a like-for-like replacement for Maxwell. In the match against SRH, they picked an extra overseas seamer in Lockie Ferguson.
What went wrong for Maxwell in IPL 2024?
Maxwell, who came into the IPL in great form, started off with a golden duck against CSK. He said, he never really got going in this edition. “T20 cricket can be like that sometimes – it’s a pretty fickle game,” he said.
“Even if you look at the first game, I ran one off the middle of the bat to the keeper. I picked up the length really well, saw a scoring opportunity, but opened the face a little bit too much. When you are going well, that goes wide of the gloves, you get a boundary, you are 4 off 1, and you are away for the tournament.
“I probably just haven’t got away – it’s as simple as that. In the first few games, I feel I made reasonably good decisions, but I was still finding ways to get out. It can happen in T20 cricket and when it snowballs like that, you can go searching and try too hard and forget the basics of the game.”
Could Maxwell have given himself one more game?
A world record 549 runs were scored 81 boundaries were hit in the match where Maxwell decided to sit out. Could he have waited for one more match to allow himself back into form?
“I did notice during the powerplay that the pitch was not as slow and two-paced as it has been in the first few games,” he said with a smile. “And I realised it was probably a bad game to miss; it would have been nice to be out there batting.
“But as I said, I wanted to give myself not just the physical break but also the mental break to give myself the right to play professional cricket. I take a lot of pride in my performance, and I put in a lot of hard work behind the scenes to get my body right for every game. And it has been a pretty tough struggle, given my body is on the wrong side of 30. I think that physical and mental toll probably just wore me down a little bit.”