With the upcoming ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 all set to kickstart from next month in the UAE and Oman, Australian star batsman Glenn Maxwell was recently given a difficult task of picking his top-5 T20 cricketers ever. Glenn Maxwell made some very interesting choices, however, not a single Indian cricketer featured in his top-5 t20 players.
Maxwell went for all the choices that would cover all the bases on the cricket field, picking a tricky spinner, two destructive all-rounders, a GOAT wicket-keeper batter and a rapid pacer.
Hailed by many as the premier spinner in T20 cricket, Rashid Khan was Maxwell’s No.1 pick. The 23-year-old, Rashid has already achieved a number of feats in his career, across all formats of the game, with batters still finding it difficult to tackle his variations.
Maxwell feels that Rashid will pose a major threat to the batters during the ICC T20 World Cup, especially with the conditions expected to be conductive to spin bowling.
Maxwell’s second pick was West Indian cricketer Andre Russell. Talking about him, Maxwell said that he is “someone who’ll add anything to any T20 side.”
Russell has been an integral part of the West Indies T20 set-up. He is regarded as one of the most destructive all-rounder in the shortest format of the game. In his T20 career, Russell has played 382 games, scoring 6405 runs at a strike-rate of 169.66. He has also picked up 340 wickets with best figures of 5/15.
Maxwell was full of praises for his next pick — Ben Stokes, who he called a “fierce competitor”. Glenn Maxwell feels that Ben Stokes’ fierce competitiveness has driven him to great heights in his international career. Having played 148 T20 matches, Stokes has scored 2,865 runs at an average of 24.91 and a strike-rate of 135.07. He has also picked 86 wickets at 31.03 apiece.
For England, Stokes has amassed 442 runs off the 34 T20Is he has played. He has also scalped 28 wickets. Maxwell feels that England will feel his absence during the T20 World Cup.
Maxwell, who is currently playing for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL, also included Adam Gilchrist in his top-5. Maxwell hailed him as the “game-changer in each and every sense of imagination”. “Unerring with the gloves and smashing with the bat, watching Gilchrist in full flow was a ride will of thrill,” said Maxwell to icc-cricket.com.
Though the shortest format of the cricket was very much in its infacy towards the end of Gilchrist’s career, but he still made an impact to the game. He played 13 matches, where he amassed 272 runs, striking at 141.66.
In Maxwell’s very own words while picking him in his top-5, the all-rounder described him as “one of my favourite players to watch.”
Picking Shaun Tait as the last player in his top-5, Glenn Maxwell said: “Having played against him, I know how quick he was. Even at the back end of his career, he was bowling absolute rockets. I think he’d certainly strike fear into any batter at the other end.”
Despite being often beset by injuries, Shaun has regularly impressed everyone with his speeds of over 150 km/ph.
