Maxwell makes retirement call as Aussie star admits bad luck plagued World Cup disaster

Veteran all-rounder Glenn Maxwell has no immediate plans to retire from international cricket, but stopped short of committing through to the next edition of the T20 World Cup in 2028.

Maxwell, who retired from ODIs last year, looks set to lose his national contract with Australia only scheduled to play five T20Is next season, while his chances of earning selection for next year’s Border-Gavaskar Trophy campaign in India remain slim.

Speaking to reporters in Melbourne on Wednesday, the 37-year-old kept the door ajar on playing for his country again despite speculation from former Australian captain Ricky Ponting that he would retire in the coming 24 months.

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“Not making a decision around my future was probably based more on what’s to come over the next 12 months,” he said.

“There’s not a whole lot of T20 cricket (in 26-27), so there’s probably no need to make any sort of formal announcements and just see how my body’s going and see how I’m travelling.

“If there’s opportunities to play in the future, hopefully I’m fit and firing.”

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Australia’s next major T20 events are the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles and the 2028 T20 World Cup on home soil, at which stage Maxwell will be 40. However, the Victorian declared he was “not setting any dates” when asked about his T20I future, revealing he’s already discussed the matter with the national selectors.

“We’ve had some discussions about what the next little bit looks like, and we’ll continue to have really open and fluid discussions going forward,” Maxwell said.

“They’re behind-closed-door discussions with the selectors that I’ve had pretty consistently over the last few years.

“I had them around the one-day stuff as well post the 2023 World Cup, like you have with any series when you’re post-30 (years old) and you’re sort of heading towards that direction.

“So I’ll be open and fluid with them, and they’re the same with me.”

Maxwell has been in a worrying form slump since returning from an arm injury in November, averaging 15.56 with a strike rate of 13.82 in T20s across that period. During the recent T20 World Cup, he contributed 62 runs across three innings, including losses to Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe.

“I probably more judge it on how I’m running around the field and how I’m feeling, more so than any statistics regarding wickets and runs,” Maxwell said.

“I just felt like I was able to get through games a lot easier, felt like I was playing my role as well as I could and felt like I still had plenty to offer.”

Meanwhile, Maxwell insisted bad lack was partly responsible for Australia’s early T20 World Cup exit, acknowledging the team was plagued by untimely injury setbacks.

“It felt like we had such a good lead-in over the last 18 months,” he said.

“We built a really good feeling around the around the group and it was a shame that we didn’t get the results that we felt like we were building towards.

“Fair to say we didn’t have a whole lot of luck in leading in – having a couple of injuries to key players, and probably having limited build up for a few of those guys, then losing the captain on the eve of the first game probably changed the way we were going to set up.

“It can happen in a short tournament like that where you need all the things to go right and we probably had a few things that went wrong. In the subcontinent, that probably gets heightened and exposed more so than other places.”

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