Glenn Maxwell couldn’t move his feet. Such was the pain that he couldn’t put weight on his front foot. The back leg was also fragile. Every time there was instinctive pressure on the legs, cramps would rush in. And yet, despite all these handicaps, Australia’s hobbling hero scored an unbeaten 201 while chasing Afghanistan’s 292 to pull off the greatest heist by a batsman on a cricket field. How?
In many ways, Maxwell has a boy’s view of what it is to be a batsman. While there is predetermination in most of his shots, he has the child-like confidence to pull off reverse-laps and has the urge to whisk the ball to unconventional areas. Maxwell bats like someone raised on gaming platforms and is perhaps the true representative of this generation. On this Tuesday night in Mumbai, he used every trick from the gaming world to strip batting to its bare essence – balance, eyesight, fast hands. Against Afghanistan, despite struggling to hold balance, his eyes and arms did the job.
His balance component has a few ingredients: the knee-flex that allows him to spring off from the ball of his feet, the subsequent postural-sway that allows a smooth transfer of weight that makes feet movement almost unnecessary, and the associated hip-turn that powers the bat speed to and through the contact zone. All this is done with boyish enthusiasm, but on this evening, the hobbler sustained an adrenaline rush and fed on admirable will to produce an aftermath of wonder. Just minutes after the most audacious ODI knock, three Pakistan former players were entrusted with the unenviable task of decoding how Maxwell could conjure those monstrous sixes when he was battling severe cramps and couldn’t use his lower body and legs. With feet movement severely restricted, how did he just let his hands do the job?
Shoaib Malik, Misbah-ul-Haq, and Wasim Akram managed to weave in insights even as they made it seem they were just shooting the breeze at A Sports studio. The three also spoke about the influence of playing multi-sports in enhancing hand-eye coordination. They cited the examples of AB de Villiers (hockey, tennis), Maxwell (scratch golfer, tennis), and their own examples (hockey for both Malik and Misbah) in their developmental years.
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