The Indian Premier League has always produced shining stars every season. While Chris Gayle took the tournament by storm with his 66 ball 175 for Royal Challengers Bangalore last season, the 7th season of the IPL is witnessing the rise of a new star.
A Switch-Hit that would make KP proud and a Scoop that would surely entertain Dilshan. There’s barely anything that Glenn Maxwell cant do in T-20 Cricket.
After missing out in the IPL for Mumbai Indians last season, the 25 year old Aussie is busy tearing opposition apart this year. Failing to live upto his million dollar price tag last year, Mumbai Indians decided against retaining Maxwell in this Season and Kings XI Punjab did not shy away from splurging a whooping 6 Crores to secure the services of Maxwell this Season. The Rest is History.
He explains probably why Mumbai Indians did not retain him “At that time, it was maybe the right decision for them to let me go. You don’t expect to make two big scores like that in a row and I have had a bit of luck as well. Hopefully the luck stays with me and I can keep making big scores.”
With the situation in hand, it appears that Mumbai Indians loss is Kings XI gain, big time. The Melbourne born cricketer has already smashed 184 runs in a mere 2 games to lead the list of highest run scorers in the IPL this season.
Maxwell has been right on the money from the word go this year. In the 1st game against CSK no one expected Punjab to come close to the 205 run total, let alone winning it. But he had other plans, Maxwell slammed a spectacular 43 ball 95 to take the game away from MS Dhoni Brigade and guide Punjab to a sensational 6 wicket win on Friday.
If this was not enough Punjab made a mockery of Rajasthan’s 191 run total on Sunday.
And while some must have considered Maxwell’s show against Chennai a fluke, the right hander’s knock against RR made it clear that the Australian is the batsmen to beat in this season. Coming to bat at 1/10,Maxwell started playing his shots to put the pressure back on the RR’s Bowlers leading to a brilliant counter-attack. The Spectators were the fielders and the fielders were the Spectators at Sharjah.
Only one wish they could hear Late Tony Greig in the background shouting in the microphone, “They are dancing in the aisles in Sharjah” as the action unfolded.
Aditya Bhattacharyya
