When cricketers are selected to be part of a squad, they are expected to be match fit. This is even expected if they don't play a scheduled match. There's no room for loafing. Should this occur and you are ultimately selected, your performance could be compromised. This is apparently the case for Aussie, Glenn Maxwell; at least, according to, Indian great, Virender Sehwag. He has also alleged the same for Englishman, Liam Livingstone
The former Indian cricketer has slammed overseas players, Glenn Maxwell and Liam Livingstone for their poor form in the Indian Premier League (IPL) this season. Speaking on Cricbuzz, Sehwag alleged that players like Maxwell and Livingstone come to India for a holiday during the IPL months.
Sehwag alleged that both players have no hunger left in them and aren't interested in winning trophies for their respective franchises. He further claimed that both players wanted to holiday and party and had no interest in improving their performances.
Maxwell and Livingstone were both dropped from the playing XI of their respective franchises — Punjab Kings and Royal Challengers Bengaluru, respectively, after a horrible start to the season. Both players were unable to make any impact either with the bat or ball so far this season.
As of this writing, Glenn Maxwell has played 6 matches; scored a total of 40 runs; with a high score of 30. This all comes at an average of 8.20. He has also taken 4 wickets. Liam Livingstone has played 7 matches; scored a total of 87 runs; with a high score of 54. This all comes at an average of 17.40. He has also taken 2 wickets.
"Maxwell, Livingstone have no hunger anymore. They come to India to spend their holidays. It's not like they love their teams, or that they are passionate about winning games for them. That they have not won a trophy yet and they have to get it done this year," Virender Sehwag said on Sunday, April 20.
"I have played with a lot of overseas players, out of which maybe one or two of them had the hunger. These other guys only talk and do not show any performance on the field," he further added.
Sehwag praised players like David Warner and AB de Villiers for their work ethic in the IPL and said they were the exceptions among overseas talents.
"David Warner, AB de Villiers and Glenn McGrath are the three players who used to tell me, 'I will win games for you, play me.' I used to be in a fix about whom to play and whom to drop. But I have seen other players — West Indians, Sri Lankans — who used to ask after the semi-finals, 'Where's the party tonight?' That's when you get to know who wants to win trophies and who is here to chill," Sehwag concluded.
Virender Sehwag and Glenn Maxwell have history together in the IPL. During Maxwell's previous stint at Punjab Kings, he fell out with Sehwag, the senior most player in the team.
In 2024, Maxwell's book contained some bombshell allegations against Sehwag, revealing that they no longer see eye to eye. In the book, Maxwell recalled the tumultuous period and claimed that Sehwag's monopoly in team selection damaged the team.
"When it came to selection, I thought it might be a good idea to bring the coaches into a WhatsApp group to make our decisions. Everyone agreed to this and shared their teams, with the exception of Sehwag. At the end of the process, he made it clear that he would pick the starting XI — end of story. We were losing on and off the field by then, with Sehwag on more than one occasion making decisions that didn’t necessarily make sense," an excerpt from Maxwell's book read.
In the book, Maxwell also revealed how Sehwag took over the final press conference of the season and publicly criticised him.
"I volunteered to do press that night, but Sehwag said he would instead. Upon getting onto the team bus, I found I'd been deleted from the main WhatsApp group. What was going on here? By the time we reached the hotel my phone was blowing up, with Sehwag having unloaded on me as a 'big disappointment', blaming me for not taking responsibility as captain, and all the rest. It was unpleasant, especially when I thought we had parted on good terms," wrote Maxwell.
He also revealed how he texted Sehwag to say that he had lost him as a fan, and Sehwag replied that he didn’t need a fan like him.
"I texted him to say how much it hurt to read those comments and added that he had lost a fan in me for the way he had conducted himself. Sehwag's response was simple: 'Don’t need fan like you.' We never spoke again. I knew my time was at an end and told the owners as much: if Sehwag was going to stick around, they were making a mistake and not to bother with me. He only lasted one more season," he added.
Nearly a year ago, Glenn Maxwell took a mid-season break during a lean run for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), having scored just 32 runs in six innings at an average of 5.33. He need time to refresh and reboot.
Maxwell had entered IPL 2024 in red-hot form, with 552 runs at 42.46 and a 185.85 strike rate in his previous 17 T20s. He also had a strong BBL season - 325 runs in nine innings at a 186.78 strike rate.
A year on in IPL 2025, things are eerily similar. He started the season for Punjab Kings (PBKS) with a golden duck against Gujarat Titans when he tried to reverse-sweep R. Sai Kishore in Ahmedabad.
Maxwell's struggles have been worsened by spin - four of his five dismissals have come against it. It's a stark contrast to his early RCB days, when he built his reputation as a spin-hitter. In RCB's run to the play-offs in 2021, Maxwell averaged 52.8 and struck at nearly 155. Since last year, his average against spin has plummeted to 4.87.
"It's a hard one, to decipher how Maxwell operates, his run of consistency or otherwise," former RCB batting coach, Sanjay Bangar, said on ESPNcricinfo T20 Time Out. "Those three years at RCB, he had a couple of batters around him who took the attention away from him.
"There was Virat [Kohli], Faf du Plessis - he wasn't really the main guy the team looked up to for miracles. He was expected to do those impactful performances, and he was delivering quite well. Here in a new role [at PBKS], he's batting slightly lower down the order as well, for me they're still looking at him as a primary overseas batter, which wasn't the case with RCB."
Maxwell's spin woes appear India-specific, with a lower aggressive shot percentage than elsewhere. Since IPL 2024, he's fallen six times to spin off just 13 attacking shots - nearly a dismissal every two balls, something RCB would have taken note of if they face him on Friday.
They will have three spinners - Krunal Pandya, Liam Livingstone and Suyash Sharma - to use as match-ups against Maxwell. While Livingstone hasn't bowled to Maxwell in the IPL, Krunal has dismissed him three times, with Maxwell striking at just 120.
"For the first two-three games, we saw a different Maxwell, he was trying to take the bowling on from ball one," Bangar said. "In the last two innings, he was happy to spend some time in the middle. Till the time he got out to Varun [Chakravathy's] googly [in the previous game against KKR], he was giving himself time, played good cricketing shots."
"He played a back foot drive past point. If he'd started with this approach, the pressure wouldn't have been so much. Now it's this way or that. I don't think Punjab will be patient to stick with him if they were to drop a couple of games, by which time the season would be on the line."
So far, PBKS have backed Maxwell, benching Marcus Stoinis in their previous game to bring in Josh Inglis. Maxwell has contributed with the ball, taking four wickets at an economy of 8.46 in six innings, and often bowling in the powerplay. The main question that needs to be answered is how long of a rope can PBKS give him because of his bowling?
To me, the above question is quite easy to answer: very small. Maxwell is primarily known for his batting. His bowling is supplementary. A team shouldn't pick a player solely for their supplementary role.
Just because they are performing at their optimal level, that doesn't mean that they are taking a break. People need to understand that people need time to acclimatise to foreign conditions. They won't adjust with a Thanos type finger snap.
Should time go on and they fail to adapt, it's best to cut them off and find a better or equally capable player for the following edition of the tournament.
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