Pakistan vs Australia 2018: Glenn Maxwell Should have been Picked - Mark Waugh

Former Australia opener, Mark Waugh feels Glenn Maxwell should have been part of Australia’s squad for the two-match Test series against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates. Mark Waugh felt Glenn Maxwell would have been a good option especially in the absence of two stalwarts, Steven Smith and David Warner.

The selectors overlooked Glenn Maxwell

However, Australia is currently staring at a defeat against Pakistan in the 1^st Test in Dubai. After a great opening stand of 141 runs, Australia was bowled out for just 202 runs. All the ten wickets fell to the spin of Bilal Asif and medium pacer Muhammad Abbas. Meanwhile, Maxwell played for Victoria who won the domestic limited-overs tournament with a relatively comfortable victory against Tasmania in Melbourne.

However, Mark Waugh resigned as the selector of the Australian team earlier in the year to commentate for Cricket Australia’s new broadcaster Fox Sports. He felt Maxwell would have been a better option to combat the Pakistan bowlers in conditions such as UAE.

Mark Waugh feels Glenn Maxwell would have been a good option for Australia

“It’s tough because we’ve lost our two best batsmen, haven’t we? And three counting [Cameron] Bancroft, so there’s only a certain pool of players that are good enough to play Test cricket,” Waugh said when assessing Australia’s batting stocks. “It’s not the time to panic, I don’t think there are many players there that would make a big difference – the only player I would have picked is Glenn Maxwell, that’s not there.

“I think he’s a guy with ability, can change the game, he’s a good player of spin, he can actually take the attack to the bowling side. So that’s the only guy I would have that’s not there, and maybe you can bring back Matt Renshaw for the second Test. But all the other guys? That’s about the best we’ve got at the moment.”

Also, it was Glenn Maxwell and his Victorian teammate, Peter Handscomb who got omitted from the Test squad after a relatively poor performance for Australia A on the tour of India. Peter underwent a few technical changes with the help of batting coach, Chris Rogers.  Meanwhile, Maxwell didn’t get a chance to play on the tour. He got an impression that he would get picked for the Test side. Hence, he decided to reject offers to play in England also.

“I had a few offers to play county cricket in England, and they were initially knocked back with an opportunity to go and play in India in the A series,” Maxwell told SEN Radio last month. “To get told not to play in the A series and have a rest, and I was understanding of that and their reasoning behind that… I was hoping that was a positive note to go to Dubai [to play Pakistan]. But obviously, that wasn’t the case.”