The Australian retired from ODI cricket after producing several moments of brilliance
Alex Malcolm02-Jun-2025How do you sum up Glenn Maxwell’s ODI career? Mercurial, magnificent, marauding, mind-blowing, maligned, and maddening, perhaps.But even those words feel like they barely scratch the surface.The numbers don’t sum it up either. His 149 games across 13 years seem an oddly low number. His 3990 runs at 33.81 places him jarringly between Geoff Marsh and Mark Taylor at 19th on Australia’s all-time ODI run-scoring list.He took fewer ODI wickets than two other batting allrounders in Steve and Mark Waugh, who turned 60 on the day of his retirement.Maxwell’s ODI legacy can’t be measured in totality. A Statsguru search for the greatest ODI players by conventional metrics won’t spit out Maxwell’s name anywhere near the top except, significantly, for his strike-rate.Highest strike rates in men’s ODIs•ESPNcricinfo LtdIt’ll be measured by the moments of sheer jaw-dropping brilliance that he produced more often than he’s given credit for.Mumbai 2023 was his masterpiece. No matter how many times you look at the scorecard, it will never make sense. But again, the numbers aren’t the story.Watching it live it made no sense. Re-living it on replay, it still makes no sense. The entire innings – 201 not out off 128 – was preposterous from start to finish for myriad reasons. He did something that simply no other player could do.But to suggest that was his one great high in an ODI career that featured plenty of lows would be unfair. He was often maligned for his inconsistencies and there is a perception that Maxwell would go missing in key moments.His record suggests otherwise. The key moments when Australia were in the most trouble was when Maxwell often shone brightest. Mumbai is the greatest example. Manchester is another. In a long-forgotten ODI series played in a bio-bubble in front of empty stands, Maxwell and Alex Carey made centuries as Australia chased 303 for a series victory against the defending ODI World Champions having been 73 for 5.Maxwell’s double-hundred in the World Cup 2023 was an innings for the ages•ICC via Getty ImagesMaxwell’s successful chasing habits started early. In just his fourth ODI he made an unbeaten 56 from 38 balls to guide Australia through a tricky pursuit against Pakistan. His unbeaten 44 in the face off in the 2015 World Cup quarter-final is often forgotten behind Steven Smith and Shane Watson’s tussle with Wahab Riaz, but it was no less critical.In 2016 he made 96 off 83 against India as Australia chased 296 with three wickets to spare. Just 17 months before his Mumbai masterpiece he pulled off a stunning chase in Pallekele against Sri Lanka with a mind-bending 80 not out off 51 balls, adding 54 with No. 9 Ashton Agar and No. 10 Jhye Richardson who contributed just four runs between them, to win with two wickets in hand and nine balls to spare. Overall in the ODI World Cup, he averaged 47.42 with a strike-rate of 160.32.As recently as his penultimate ODI innings, at the Champions Trophy earlier this year, he walked out with Australia needing 70 off 50 balls chasing 352 against England and smashed 32 not out off 15 to end the game alongside Josh Inglis with 15 balls unused.Glenn Maxwell averaged 47.42 with a strike rate of 160.32 in World Cup cricket•AFP/Getty ImagesHis ability to translate T20 batting into ODI cricket is unparalleled. In 34 successful ODI chases, Maxwell averaged 56.40 at a strike-rate of 127.89. The list of ODI players who average 50 or more in winning chases striking at 90 or more is illustrious, and Maxwell sits in the rarest air.Maxwell’s outstanding chasing record is instructive about his mindset. For all the moments you wondered ‘how did he do that’, there were just as many thoughts of ‘why did he do that’ when the game was set up for him.Something about chasing near impossible targets simplified the game for him as he explained to ESPNcricinfo last year.”Sometimes the feeling of, oh, there’s no way back that can sort of free you up a bit, so you sort of take the pressure off yourself,” Maxwell said. “It makes it a bit more simple in front of you.”Where sometimes if you’re on top of the game, or level with the game, it can be a bit complicated, where you think we don’t need to go too hard, or we need to only go at four an over and we’re under no pressure. You can be a bit more tentative.”Glenn Maxwell played a huge role as a bowler too in Australia’s World Cup winning campaigns in 2015 and 2023•AFP/Getty ImagesHe thrived in pressure moments with the ball and in the field, too. His bowling record does not leap off the page, but his role in Australia’s two World Cup titles was crucial. In 2015 he played as the lone spinner on home soil and did a sterling job, taking the key wicket of Martin Guptill early in the final after Mitchell Starc had rattled Brendon McCullum’s stumps in the opening over.His wicket in the 2023 final silenced 100,000 people and broke 1.6 billion hearts. With Rohit Sharma flying, Maxwell was asked to bowl the last over of the first powerplay. Rohit clubbed him for six and four off the second and third balls taking his career ODI record against Maxwell to 161 from 127 balls for one dismissal. Maxwell held his nerve, changed the pace and trajectory and forced a mistake to change the complexion of the match.His figures of 1 for 35 from six do not adequately reflect how brilliant that delivery was in that one moment.The rollercoaster of his onfield displays matched the rollercoaster of his life off it. But it is amazing how well he has endured and has kept meeting the moment, despite form slumps, mental health challenges, a broken leg, a golf cart concussion and being hospitalised with severe dehydration at another golf day.He is mercurial in every sense of the word. And he is not done yet. If his ODI record undersells his brilliance, his T20I record emphasises it. Despite another lean IPL ending in injury, you wouldn’t put it past him to produce a special performance at next year’s World Cup.That is the magic of Maxwell. If you can’t handle him at his worst, you don’t deserve him at his best. Not every Australian regime got the best of Maxwell all of the time in ODI cricket, but he produced high points under each of them across a 13-year career.His best will be irreplaceable. That is without question. Seeing it was a privilege, every maddening and magnificent moment of it.