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'I actually went up myself and told them 'you might as well not play me'': Maxwell on IPL 2020 low with Punjab Kings
Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) took a gamble on Maxwell at the 2021 IPL auctions and signed him up for ₹14.25 crore.
Glenn Maxwell endured a nightmarish Indian Premier League (IPL) season in 2020 where the Australian big-hitting all-rounder failed to leave his mark for Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings). Tagged among flops of the IPL season in the UAE, Maxwell managed to score just 108 runs. He had a dismal average of 15.52 and a below-par strike rate of 101.88 in 13 games, and ended his abysmal campaign without hitting a single six. (ALSO READ | 'It might've been something that's been weighing him down': Maxwell opens up on 'big burden' of captaincy on Kohli)
A below-par season with the Punjab-based outfit was followed by Maxwell shifting his base to Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). Bangalore took a gamble on Maxwell at the 2021 IPL auctions and signed him up for ₹14.25 crore. He certainly silenced the doubters by playing a key role in Bangalore's journey to the playoffs. He was the leading run-getter for the franchise with 513 runs at an average of 42.75 in 14 innings.
As Maxwell gears up for the new season where he is being seen as a key part of the leadership bunch, he recalled his gruesome season with Punjab where he seemed lost amid a robust batting line-up comprising the likes of KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal and Chris Gayle. Maxwell said he ended up facing less than an over at times, making it difficult for him to get going.
"I probably had five years at Punjab... and two years were very good. I was MVP of the league in the first year and was a captain in the second. I performed solidly... scored over 300 runs and picked about 10 wickets as well. I felt that was actually my better year despite the fact that I didn't get as many runs. But when I made those runs, we won the games. I think my highest score was 46-47 runs but I made those runs on 4-5 occasions... I was not out and finished the game as I was the captain and my role was to finish games. I was really proud of the way I played that year and ended up getting released by Kings XI. I went to Delhi the following year and then had a year off," Maxwell said on RCB Podcast.
The 33-year-old Maxwell was retained by Bangalore for a whopping ₹11 crore for IPL 2022 and he underlined the in-game momentum, which was an element missing from his batting exploits for Punjab. The Australian believes his game requires him to spend time in the middle before coming out all guns blazing.
"That was obviously a hard time... the previous two years went very good but I struggled to get momentum throughout the tournament. Last year was a bit of a nightmare. Nothing really went right. T20 cricket can be hard if you're a middle-order player. You're not getting to play a lot of balls in the middle. You're not getting consistency. KL and Mayank were making truckloads of runs. Pooran was smacking as well... and a lot of times I ended up facing less than an over or two.
"You can train as much as you want but if you don't have that in-game momentum, it makes it really hard for a player to rediscover himself. I was going to every game and felt like I haven't batted for six months. Even though I was training every day, I had no rhythm whatsoever in the game. We had so many top-order batters playing well and we brought Gayle in... and I was pushed another spot down the order. I actually went up myself and told them 'you might as well not play me," Maxwell added.
"I was like, 'I might get even fewer balls and its gonna be tougher for me.' I'm not like Andre Russell who can come out and hit the first ball for six... I need time. To their credit, they stuck with me because I was bowling really well and was fielding and doing a lot of work with the captain and bowlers. But batting-wise, if you don't get the rhythm early on, it's really hard to rediscover," he further said.
