‘They start infighting, finger-pointing …’ Glenn Maxwell reveals how he targeted ‘subcontinent’ trait in Afghanan to make them unravel | Cricket-world-cup News

While the whole world and importantly the Afghanan team watched him writhing in pain on the ground, and dealing with cramps in toes, calf, hamstring and back spasms, hoping he would buckle under, any moment, Glenn Maxwell had throughout been working on messing with their minds at Wankhede. The sixes and fours would inevitably rain down later to catch on with the target. But it was the casual, smiling bullheadedness to survive, of Maxwell with Pat Cummins and some cricketing chess that the former played that ultimately broke Afghan backs and gave the Australians an epic win that cricket won’t easily forget.
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Maxwell is unlikely to play at the MCA Stadium on Friday against Bangladesh but speaking on the podcast Club Prairie Fire, he offered a peek into five-time world cup champions’ response to the collapse at 91/7. The Australian batting unit reckon they have cracked the code to take chases deep.
Showtime for the Big Show began from the first delivery he faced at 49/4, a hattrick ball after the departure of David Warner and Josh Inglis. “I had nicked it and didn’t believe it didn’t carry to the keeper. I tried to stare blankly and not look guilty. But I saw them running around the batters a lot. I hoped they’d make a couple of emotional decisions, and burn a few reviews early. And if a few close lbw calls went against them, it could take a toll on them and I could start playing on their emotions,” he told Adam Gilchr and Michael Vaughn on the podcast.

Though he was dropped on 24 and 33, Maxwell continued to do the legwork for a future assault. “Earlier all I did was play one reverse sweep against Noor Ahmad to make sure deep backward point became a little bit finer, and I knew they had to have mid-off back at some stage. They wouldn’t take mid-wicket out if they wanted to bowl a leggie. So with the sweep I created a gap either side of mid-off, both sides of cover and over the top. As soon as I got it wide outside off, I could use my hands through gaps. I was setting up even dot ball to get those boundary gaps,” he explained of manipulating the field.
Maxwell would prey on their impatience eventually, banking on what he called a subcontinent trait to come undone. “The energy that they had in the first 15-20 overs was extraordinary and we have seen that a lot from them. I have played (against) a lot of sub continental teams and one thing I have always found that if you could take the sting out of the game, not runs but basically being there, you play one or two shots in every couple of overs and you can see how flat it starts to get,” he told the podcast.
“They start a bit of bickering, infighting, finger-pointing, arms-raising, fielders not paying attention, it sort of starts to unravel,” he said.
Pat Cummins would play a major role, with his easy manner, as if it was just two guys having a beer at a pub, talking cricket. “He was laughing, joking. This one time he played and missed on legside, and said ‘don’t worry mate, we’ll get them after a few overs when the fielder’s in’. We still needed 200 then! But the fact that we just stood there and smiled, sucked the emotion out of them. It was like they were saying, ‘hey, we’re still here trying to win a game of cricket’. But neither of us were buying into it too much and kept having fun,” he recalled of a surreal inning where he swung between wincing in pain and grinning at his partner.Most Read
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The desperation wasn’t allowed to mount a simple thought: “We knew we are probably not going to win this. So we thought let’s just stick around. Stick to plans,” Maxwell described, adding they didn’t really go deep into discussing the plans.
Getting the runs itself was something Maxwell was equipped for as long as they stayed put. “It’s got a lot to do with positions I get myself into on the golf course where I’m stuck behind a tree and I have to turn my wr around. Flick it around. It allows you to be inventive. One of things I used to work for every BBL game was to do drills where the first 12 balls I’d stand dead still and hit them as far as I could as a warm-up to get trajectory. Working on upper body movement without using legs, tinker with bowlers,” he said.

Adam Gilchr called it a ODI-salvaging innings. “In the short hory of T20 cricket, there have been phenomenal victories when it all seems lost, but batters are bashing their way out of it. Beauty of one day cricket is you’ve got time for the story to be told. Time for games to look like they’ve been lost, but consolidate, rebuild and relaunch.” Cummins and Maxwell seemed to toy around with time, and as an extension the Afghans.