Posted by Today Glenn Maxwell spent one ball in the 90s and it was a no-ball. There’s not much cause to be nervous in the 90s when it’s so vanishingly unlikely you’ll be dismissed in them.
When weird looking batters score a lot of runs, there are two main things people tend to say about them.
- “If you look closely, he’s actually in a good position when he makes contact with the ball”
- “His head is actually very still when he hits the ball”
See the four stages of Steve Smith’s recurring metamorphosis into a batsman for a good example of the first one. Shivnarine Chanderpaul was another who injected an incredible volume of weirdness into his movements before striking the ball but who then generally did so from a not-too-insane position.
Glenn Maxwell is very much in the second category. The best you can say is that whatever position he gets himself into, he generally sticks with it.
Maxwell doesn’t ever seem to think, “Man, this is a worryingly bizarre contortion, maybe I should refrain from trying to hit this one for six.”
He instead seems to go with, “Man, this is a worryingly bizarre contortion. Well, anyway, guess I’ll hit this for six.”
Exhibit A
Glenn Maxwell’s reverse-panning really is quite the thing to behold. This is not a position from which many batters hit boundaries, but our man’s pretty comfortable swinging backwards into the off-side while facing forwards with one knee on the ground. He’s watching the ball. He’s going to hit the ball for four.
Exhibit B
This knock-kneed sibling of the previous one preceded the ball going for six, even though he completely forgot to follow-through for some reason.
Exhibit C
Another frequently-adopted position is when Glenn turns himself into a reverse letter C. This looks really, really, deeply uncomfortable. However, no-one seems to have informed his head or his hands of this fact and so they just busy themselves mullering the ball into the crowd at cow corner.
Exhibit D
You can’t slice the ball behind square for six if you don’t first get under it, so simply collapse your back leg, get good and low, and keep your bat face pointing towards the off side throughout, even though you may have to sacrifice both wrists to achieve this.
Next step
Celebrate your 40-ball hundred without a bat.
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/zimbabwe-in-namibia-2023-24-1404388/namibia-vs-zimbabwe-2nd-t20i-1404391/ball-by-ball-commentary
Excellent T20 between Zim and Namibia. Namibia batted first and got 198/3 with contributions all the way through the top and upper middle order. Zimbabwe needed eighteen off the final over to pull off the chase, which ended up going down to the last ball.
If you haven’t been following the series, Namibia won the first match in Windhoek by a very comfortable 7 wickets, with 38 balls remaining. It’s pretty astonishing that anyone might be watching this while the cricketing world’s attention is fixated on the World Cup… Was this the kind of series that only makes a profit if some random Asian sports channels pick up the TV rights? I have no idea how this stuff works financially and it’s being played at the most inopportune time, but nevertheless is shaping up to be a very interesting series. Three more matches to go and it could be anyone’s.
I often wonder what it would’ve been like to have Maxwell be the successor to ABD.
In the meantime, ‘Maxie, Maxie’!
Looks like he’s trying an unorthodox shot from Cricket 19.
One of the ball-by-ball descriptions of Maxwell’s sixes on Cricinfo is “pumps a six over long on, and then falls over off balanced” which says it all really.
Maybe Maxie should get guidance from fellow Aussi George Bailey for the full effect…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00K_St4e0BM&ab_channel=cricket.com.au
Isn’t he a bit like Suryakumar Yadav in that aspect? Gets into the weirdest positions and then hits it for six
Given their respective longevity in international cricket, it’s more the other way around. And Maxwell is also a step above anyone else in weirdness factor.
Stop, stop, England are already dead!
Can we just board the plane and abandon the rest of our games? What would be the sanction for that I wonder… expulsion from future editions of the CWC? The ECB are probably delighted at this possibility.
I’m now actually looking forward to the official inquest into this debacle in the faint hope it might indirectly criticise The Hundred.