Australia all-rounder Glenn Maxwell has revealed his record-breaking innings of 201 not out off 128 balls against Afghanistan at the 2023 Men's ODI World Cup on Tuesday wasn’t all about swinging in a chaotic manner, and added that there was a bit of planning involved in taking the five-time champions over the line.
Australia were reeling at 91/7 in a run-chase of 292 at the Wankhede Stadium, when Maxwell joined hands with Pat Cummins to put on a 202-run stand. The skipper contributed only 12 runs as Maxwell took centrestage, battled cramps in calf, shin, hamstring and toes while battling bad back to single-handedly win the match through smashing the greatest ODI innings of all time.
Maxwell also revealed that thoughts of retiring hurt had crossed his mind. "It was certainly in our discussions. We talked about coming off, trying to get some work into my back and trying to loosen up my legs a little bit."
"Jonesy (Australia physio Nick Jones) said it would be really hard to come back out down the stairs after that so probably made the job a little bit more simple and then we came up with let's just stay at the same end for as long as we can until you sort of feel like you can at least walk at the other end or if there's an easy single here and there."
"For a while if I can get one or two boundaries from one end it didn't really matter what happened at the other end because we got it to around a run and ball at that stage. There was a certain planning, it wasn't all just chaotic swinging but there was a bit of planning to it," Maxwell was quoted as saying by ICC.
Maxwell, who dealt in boundaries through staying still at the crease, appreciated Cummins for giving him the desired support from the other end. "I think when Patty was pretty calm, I think when it got to about maybe 60 or 70 (runs required), I thought two more, maybe half decent overs of around 15 and It's right in the balance."
"We knew Rashid (Khan) had about 18 balls left and that it was going to happen in the last 13 overs or something like that. So, as long as we sort of kept him out of game, I felt like I could hit boundaries off the others."
"I was sort of more about negating him, not letting him have a shot at the rest of the tail because he's obviously world class. He can hit you on the pad and he can beat you both sides of the bat. So, I just felt like if we could negate him and keep him out of the back end of the game, we'd be all right," he added.
At Mumbai, Maxwell also became the first non-opener in men's ODIs to make a double hundred. It caps off a remarkable time where Maxwell had missed Australia’s previous win over England in Ahmedabad due to concussion suffered after falling off a golf cart and he was pleased over getting the side in semi-finals, with their final league match against Bangladesh happening in Pune later this week.
"It's been weird, weird couple of weeks, weeks but I extremely grateful to be able to get back out here and make the semis. I think after the first two games we were pretty close to written off by most people and to be able to get string six wins together at the right time and we didn't have our best stuff tonight against a pretty spirited opposition so to be in the semis is great.”