Two-time World Cup-winner Glenn Maxwell, the only Australian batter to score a double hundred for Australia in 50-over cricket, has decided to quit the One-day International (ODI) format to focus on the T20 format and his commitments to franchise cricket.
Maxwell conveyed to the chief of Australia's national selection committee, George Bailey during February's Champions Trophy tournament that he is no longer interested in playing the 50-over format and would not be available for the 2027 World Cup.
"I said to him right then and there, 'I don't think I'm going to make that. I think it's time to start planning for people in my position, to have a crack at it and try and make that spot their own for the 2027 World Cup. Hopefully, they get enough of a lead-in where they can have success in that role.
Maxwell, who won the ODI World Cup with Australia in 2019 and 2023, is the third player from the country to retire from the format after Marcus Stoinis and Steve Smith, who quit earlier this year.
Maxwell quits the 50-over game with 3990 runs from 136 innings of 149 matches, ending with a strike rate of 126.70, the highest batting strike rate in ODI history among any batter to have scored at least 2,000 runs, and an average of 33.81. He has scored four centuries and 23 fifties in this format and has also taken 77 wickets in 119 innings.
One of Australia's best all-rounders, Maxwell will continue to play T20s for Australia and also first-class cricket, admitted the physical demands of the 50-over game had become too much.
My decision to retire from one-day international cricket was probably more on the back of the first couple of games in the Champions Trophy. I felt like I gave myself a really good opportunity to be fit and ready for those games. The first game in Lahore, we played on a rock-hard outfield. Post that game I was pretty sore.
"We were lucky enough to have a washout against South Africa, where I had a bit more time to have a bit of rest and get myself ready for the next game.
"The following game against Afghanistan, we fielded for 50 overs on a really, really wet outfield. It was slippery, it was soft, and I just didn't pull up that well.
"I started to (realise) that if I don't have the perfect conditions in 50-over cricket, my body just struggles to get through that."
It feels like it's a tiring affair just to get through – and almost surviving – the 50 overs, let alone being at my best throughout that 50 overs, and then going out there and trying to perform with the bat as well. I felt like I was letting the team down a little bit with how my body was reacting to the conditions.
Among the things Maxwell will be remembered for will be the unbeaten 201 against Afghanistan in the 2023 World Cup at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. Coming in with Australia in trouble and facing a hat-trick ball, Maxwell became the first middle-order batter to score a double hundred in a 50-over game with a six, clinching victory and semifinal spot for Australia, which went on to defend their title.
This was the first double century by a player while chasing and also the second fastest-double century after Ishan Kishan of India, reaching the mark in 128 balls while Kishan scored 200 off 126 balls.
This was a moment, like Steve Waugh's Ashes ton on the last ball of the day, or Michael Bevan's final four to beat the Windies. One of those events that makes you ask ‘Where were you when... It was crazy to think that I now had one of these, a moment when Australia was all on board.
It is this 200 and his record in the game as an all-rounder that could get Maxwell a place in the Hall of Fame in the 50-over format.
