On Maxwellball
A tribute to Glenn Maxwell on the announcement of his ODI retirement
In early November, 2014, back when the social media site Twitter was something other than a dystopian hellscape, I tweeted ‘The cricket is good. But it’s no Maxwellball.’
This was during the second Test against Pakistan in the UAE, a Test that marked one of Glenn Maxwell’s all-too-few returns to the Test side.
Pakistan had won the previous Test by 221 runs, and Maxwell had replaced Alex Doolan in the Australian eleven, donning the baggy green for the third time. (The previous two times had been during the infamous HomeworkGate series against India in 2013, culminating in the magnificent moment when captain Shane Watson opened the batting and bowling with Glenn.)
Improbably, it was this return to the Test match format that would be the first time I’d use the term ‘Maxwellball’, which would go on to become my convenient shorthand for everything I adore about Maxwell’s batting. During this Test, Maxwell scored a very Maxwellballian 37 (28). Yet, despite this (and a less Maxwellballian 4 (12) in the second innings), Australia’s 356-run defeat saw him out of the Test side for the foreseeable future, leaving him to ply his delightful trade primarily in the white ball forms of the game.
Maxwellball was always intended to be a play on the idea of Calvinball, the game played by Hobbes and Calvin in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. A game defined by its endless inventiveness.
For this is precisely how I’d grown to love the batting of Maxwell. After initial bemusement on my part (very early on in my social media commentary on Maxwell, I’d apparently decided that the strongest comic angle from which to talk about him was his million dollar IPL pay check - a decision I swiftly abandoned), I’d been won over by his audacity and refusal to play in a way that resembled any previous cricketer I’d seen.
The reverse-sweep was, of course, the trademark shot of the Maxwellball approach. Well before everybody else got onto the backwards batting bandwagon, Glenn was out there, wielding it with a savagery and regularity that delighted me in direct proportion to how much it annoyed television commentary teams.
But Maxwellball wasn’t just reverse-sweeping, or attacking the bowling from ball one. Maxwellball was something more beautiful. Maxwellball, I came to realise, was a mindset. One man’s mindset. And, as I later clarified when I named Glenn the fifth funniest cricketer of all time, Maxwellball was also a sport. One improbably better than cricket, undercut only by the fact that it existed ‘only in the mind of one mad cricketing genius’.
This was how I’d eventually come to define Maxwellball. Maxwellball was the sport played by Glenn Maxwell, built on top of whatever cricket match he happened to be involved in. And it was my favourite ever sport. Amazing and hilarious things can happen in cricket, obviously. But amazing and hilarious things happen even more often in Maxwellball. As I’ve long maintained, funny cricket is better than good cricket, and Maxwellball was the number one source of both funny cricket and good cricket.
We mostly saw Maxwellball built atop white ball cricket, of course. This is where we learnt that when it was time for Maxwell to bat, all eyes needed to be on him. Because, while he was often decried for his inconsistency, Maxwell was, in fact, astonishingly consistent. Just not in the way most observers understood.
Throughout his career, the runs scored by Maxwell might have risen to improbable highs, or fallen to disappointing lows. But the one thing that remained reliable was the strike rate. Above 120 (7+ runs per over) in ODIs, above 150 (9+ runs per over) in T20s. Maybe he wouldn’t come off, but when he did, you knew you were in for something spectacular. You knew you were in for Maxwellball.
When I wrote my piece on Maxwell naming him as one of my favourite funny cricketers, I ended the piece by bemoaning the fact he was the only one playing the sport he’d created.
Alas, Maxwellball has only the one player so far - its creator, Glenn Maxwell. As such, he's forced to play the game within cricket, until the rest of the world recognise the superior sport he's invented and join him.
Let's hope they hurry up.
And yet, one of the greatest legacies of Glenn Maxwell, the cricketer (and Maxwellballer), is that the white ball versions of the game - particularly T20s - have, over the ensuing years, slowly bent themselves towards Maxwellball.
Batters will now attack the bowling with the ferocity and fearlessness for which Maxwell was criticised when he began. The fielding and catching that left us dumbstruck when Maxwell was first dancing in and around boundary ropes is now considered routine. White ball cricket is becoming Maxwellball, and I, for one, couldn’t be happier.
This evolution of the game is a hell of a tribute to Maxwell, but, of course, Glenn wasn’t standing still while the rest of the cricketing world did their best to catch up to him. Instead, he was pushing the boundaries of Maxwellball still further.
Which brings us, of course, to the ODI high mark of his (or anybody’s) career. The epitome of Maxwellball. The greatest ODI innings ever.
The 201*.
Against Afghanistan in the 2023 ODI World Cup, with Australia 7/91 in the nineteenth over, still 200 runs shy of Afghanistan’s 5/291, Maxwell was joined by his captain Pat Cummins.
Just under thirty overs later, Cummins was 12* (68), as Australia improbably chased down the total.
Great stuff from Pat. But Maxwell, in the immortal words of Cummins, also deserved ‘a lot’ of credit for the win, finishing on, uh, 201*.
Under even ordinary circumstances, it would have been one of the greatest ever ODI knocks, and most improbable victories.
But Glenn Maxwell doesn’t do ordinary circumstances. Because extraordinarily, more than fifty runs shy of victory, Maxwell began to suffer from cramps so debilitating that at one point he found himself a toppled statue at the non-striker’s end, legs locked and immobile as his drained muscles went to war against him.
Fine, be like that, legs, was apparently Maxwell’s response to his limbs’ cruel betrayal. Who needs you?
He therefore proceeded to undermine every batting coach in history by eschewing all footwork (including the running of singles) as he pulled, drove and, yes, reverse-swept, the remaining runs, Maxwellballing Australia to a frankly ludicrous victory.
Ian Smith on commentary declared it ‘un-be-liev-able’ and ‘the most remarkable thing you’ll probably ever see in cricket’.
Ricky Ponting began with the disclaimer that ‘I’ve watched and played a lot of cricket’ before going on to state that ‘I’ve seen nothing like that’.
Pat Cummins, at the non-striker’s end, just applauded and flashed his beautiful smile in disbelief.
But, like all Maxwellball, there were other elements beyond even the double century and the leglessness that gave the innings extra comedic charm.
It was Maxwell’s first game back after a golf-related concussion
He was almost out first ball, after arriving at the crease on a hat trick and surviving a review, edging a ball that was perilously close to both pad and stumps, only for it to fall short of the keeper
He was given out LBW to Rashid Khan, and walked off after seeing that the ball had pitched in line with the stumps, only to unwalk off once ball tracking revealed the ball was bouncing over the stumps
Oh, and he was dropped by Mujeeb Ur Rahman early in his innings, a looping scoop straight to the fielder that was inexplicably fumbled
Sublime Maxwellball. What a sport.
And, ultimately, reason enough to bow out of ODI cricket. Once you’ve played the greatest, and most Maxwellballiest, ODI innings of all time, what else is there to conquer?
Now… let’s get him back into the Test side.
Further Maxwellball Reading
I’ve written a lot (a lot) about Glenn Maxwell and Maxwellball over the years. Here’s just a tiny sample of it.
The Maxwellball text adventure (!) games can be found at maxwellball.net
The tribute to Maxwellball in my funniest cricketers countdown
Maxwell made my book of Australia’s Fifty Greatest Cricketers of the Last Fifty Years. (If you’re a paid subscriber, there should be a PDF of my piece on him at the end of this post.)
I also added a piece on Maxwell to my Instant Cricket Library book, reimagining him as a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy entry. Again, there’s a PDF below for paid subscribers.
Plus, loads and loads more. Why, here’s a random piece on this very site, that’s mostly just me being silly.
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