Is Glenn Maxwell going the Shahid Afridi way?

The fall from grace

2016 hasn’t been the best of years for the Australian big-hitter

If 2015 was the story of success, 2016 has only thrown failure in the way of Maxwell that have set the alarm bells ringing. Going into the ICC T20 World Cup in India this year, the Aussies were keen to lay their hands on a trophy they have never won till date. And Maxwell was predictably going to be their talisman in the shortest format of the game.

But the jinx continued as the Australians failed to step up when most required. Maxwell disappointed like his teammates getting starts in most of the matches but failing to kick on when most required. The T20 World Cup ended on a sad note for the Aussies and in keen contrast to what had happened in the 50-over world cup the last year, some of the greatest Aussie players of the present generation were under scrutiny for their poor performances.

And Maxwell was one of those players under tremendous pressure as he seemed to have got into a rut. When Australia lost the tri-series by failing to chase down the paltry South-African total of 189, the focus was firmly on Glenn Maxwell.

Following the poor performances in the T20 World Cup, he had carried his miserable form into the series against New Zealand and the tri-series against the West Indies and South Africa. Scores from his last five ODIs, all in single digits, are 0,6,0,0,3.

For a cricketer who was named the ODI player of the year at the annual Allan Border medal in January for his average of 46 and strike-rate of 135.86 in ODIs last year, his average in 2016 has slipped to a miserly 22.25 in one-dayers.

His T20 form has also been nothing to write home about. After the disastrous T20 World Cup campaign, he had an equally forgettable IPL this year, where he amassed 179 runs at an average of under 20 for an insipid Kings XI Punjab. Compare that to the fact that he was the player of the tournament in the IPL in the 2014 season and you can get a clear hint of which way the graph is headed for the Australian maverick.

The Australian press have been unforgiving, lambasting Maxwell recently for his poor performances. Unsavoury comparisons have already surfaced with Shahid Afridi whose most remembered innings is still his 37-ball century, which was the fastest in ODIs at that time. The fact that this innings came fairly towards the beginning of Afridi's career might suggest that he has done precious little for the rest of his career.

In all fairness, Afridi with the likes of Jayasuriya, lit up an era in the late 90s, when they changed the way cricket was played by beginning to take advantage of the fielding restrictions in the first 15 overs. Though cricket changed undeniably because of their contributions, while Jayasuriya is hailed unanimously as one of the greatest, Afridi remains a polarising figure among Pakistani fans.

Most fans like to believe that Afridi had overstayed his tenure in international cricket, continuing as a bits-and-pieces cricketer whose reputation always preceded his performances. Maxwell, quite interestingly, has elicited such aggressive polarised opinions among his fans with some defending him to come out of this bad patch while others more impatient to call time on him soon enough.

But if there's one thing that Maxwell can be certain about it is that with the aggressive performance-oriented approach of the Aussie selectors, no one can hope to overstay in Australian cricket.

He still has time on his side and will surely get a few more opportunities. But with every next time that he walks back to the pavilion now after failing to execute a perfect a reverse scoop, mild consternation will begin to give away to sordid impatience. Like with Afridi at the twilight of his career, Maxwell would not like himself to be remembered as the maverick who rode his luck.