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Glenn Maxwell is nothing if not conspicuous. But he may have to be hidden in “quieter” parts of the field for the remainder of his career due to the after-effects of his badly broken leg, Australia’s selection chair George Bailey has admitted.
In addition to carrying Travis Head through half the World Cup until his fractured hand heals, Bailey explained that Maxwell, 34, can no longer be expected to throw himself around in the fashion of a latter-day Ricky Ponting.
Glenn Maxwell cannot be expected to field like he used to.Credit: AP
It’s a sobering reminder of the tightrope Australia are walking ahead of the World Cup, boasting a squad of high-quality performers who have shown the capacity to beat tournament favourites India on home soil, but at the same time managing a group that is already wearing plenty of battle scars.
These arrive not only in the obvious form of injuries but also the tired bodies and minds of players who have spent more than 30 weeks of the year overseas in some cases. The young allrounder Cameron Green is chief among that group after his $3 million turn in the Indian Premier League.
“Glenn’s been so dynamic across his one-day career, not only, his ability with the bat and ball, but even just the positions he puts himself in the field,” Bailey said after Maxwell’s 4-40 shored up plans to include Marnus Labuschagne after Ashton Agar was ruled out with a calf problem.
“There may be games where, not just for this tournament but the rest of his career where Glenn doesn’t necessarily have to go to the hotspots or he might have some games where we can try and find some quieter spots for him in the field.”
The decision to pick Labuschagne alongside the seam-bowling allrounders Mitchell Marsh, Green and Marcus Stoinis has left the Australians with only one specialist spinner in Adam Zampa, although Bailey was eager to talk up Maxwell’s slow-bowling credentials.
One of the most concerning issues for the selectors is the fact that none of Stoinis, Green, Alex Carey or Josh Inglis have performed with the bat over the recent run of matches in which Labuschagne fought his way into the squad.
Between them, Stoinis, Green, Carey and Inglis have two half centuries between them from a combined 21 innings over the eight games against South Africa and India, none averaging better than 21 in that time.
Most troubling of all is the downturn in the returns for Green, who after accepting the aforementioned auction price to play for Mumbai Indians in the IPL has spent only a handful of days at home in Perth since January. Sage observers of Green have noticed the development of a few bad habits with both the bat and the ball.
He lost his Test place to Marsh during the Ashes, and has found neither time in the middle nor fluency in five innings either side of a concussion in South Africa. Bailey said the treadmill of white-ball cricket had challenged his panel.
“That’s been a little bit of a challenge through some of the one-day series we’ve had over the last couple of years,” he said. “The timing of them has meant that quite often they’ve come at the back of big Test series, so we haven’t really had a chance to put together what you might consider our first-choice XI too often.
“While not having the continuity of team you may say would be desirable, we’ve also been able to broaden the depth of the squad, and if you look ahead to the length of the tournament and how many games there are, the challenge of tournament play, we’re going to need the depth.”
As for Head’s inclusion, there is no date set for his arrival in India, nor which game he is aiming to be fit for. There remains a chance that, should Head suffer a setback in his recovery, a second spin bowler may ultimately be drafted in. Conceivably, this could be Agar once he recovers, or the travelling reserve Tanveer Sangha.
“First and foremost it’s about him recovering and that’s the hurdle that he’s got to overcome, “Bailey said of Head. “So there’s not a specific date or a game we’ve lined up. We’re aware of the risk that if there’s a setback there, it makes it really challenging for Trav, but I don’t think we’ve put a timeframe on it from that point of view.
“When he does come online, whenever that is, and he’s available, he can have a really important impact for us towards the end of the tournament.”
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