The cricket world has declared Glenn Maxwell’s heroic innings of 201 not out the greatest World Cup innings of all time as he steered Australia to a famous three-wicket win over Afghanistan.
Australia sat in a perilous position at 7-91 midway through the 19th over as Afghanistan appeared on the verge of an all-time boilover.
Enter Maxwell.
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The big-hitting Victorian was on just 22 runs when Aussie skipper Pat Cummins strode out to the middle, but what transpired over the next 179 runs from Maxwell left several running out of superlatives.
Maxwell smacked Afghanistan’s bowling attack across every inch of the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, sending the crowd further and further into a deep frenzy.
He also had to overcome a painful bout of full body cramp in the 41st over as he required four minutes of treatment from the team physio.
Yet Maxwell soldiered on and eventually helped Australia deliver its highest successful run chase at a World Cup and shatter Afghanistan’s hearts.
It was the first time an Aussie men’s cricketer scored an ODI double-century and became the only player in history to do so batting at No. 3 or lower.
Safe to say, Maxwell’s astonishing feat left the cricket world with their jaws on the floor.
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Sachin Tendulkar, one of the greatest to ever play the game, wrote: “From Max pressure to Max performance! This has been the best ODI knock I’ve seen in my life.”
Former England captain Michael Vaughan agreed with the Indian legend and even went one step further.
“The GREATEST ODI innings of all time @Gmaxi32 .. You could say the GREATEST innings of all time,” Vaughan wrote on X.
Ben Stokes, architect of England’s famous 2019 World Cup win, added: “My goodness Maxi”.
The Daily Mail’s Aadam Patel believed Wankhede Stadium had “never seen an innings as utterly insane” as Maxwell’s.
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“Maxwell’s double hundred was gladiatorial yet quite frankly ridiculous,” Patel wrote.
Former England bowler Steve Harmison was another who struggled to find the right words to describe Maxwell’s historic knock.
“I didn’t think I’d witness anything as good, powerful, as grit, determination … when you’re playing for your country, what I witnessed when Ben Stokes did what he did at Headingley, I tell you what, what Maxwell did is right up there,” Harmison said on ESPNCricinfo Matchday.
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“To bat on one leg for probably two thirds of that innings, hats off. That’s just a remarkable innings and I don’t think in 50-over WC history that innings will ever be beaten.”
Ex-Pakistan international Urooj Mumtaz believed we’d never see an innings quite like it ever again.
“You don’t expect that in all human capacity, for something like that to go down,” Mumtaz told ESPNCricinfo Matchday.
“It’s just phenomenal, unbelievable, you can’t put it into words.
“It’s not meant for the normal human being because it looked like he was batting on a different planet.
“I don’t see something as phenomenal or remarkable as that every again in one-day history given the circumstances he did it in.”
Cricket scribes were also in awe of what had unfolded.
The Telegraph’s Will Macpherson described it as one of the all-time “heists”.
“Nursing cramp so severe that he could not run between the wickets or even move his feet at the crease, Glenn Maxwell orchestrated one of the most extraordinary heists in cricket history to seal Australia’s place in the World Cup semi-finals,” he wrote.
“When Australia lost Mitchell Starc to fall to 91 for seven chasing 293 for seven in Mumbai, Afghanistan were on the verge of a fifth famous victory at the tournament. But that wicket, of Starc, who walked despite not being out, merely brought Maxwell and captain Pat Cummins together.
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“It was scarcely believable that they could still be there at the end, but they were, having shared the highest eighth-wicket partnership in ODI history, an unbeaten 202. Cummins contributed just 12 of them, while Maxwell reached his double-century as he struck the winning runs, with his 10th six, to go with 21 fours.”
Former England captain Mike Atherton, writing in The Times, said it was hard to put into words what Maxwell had accomplished.
“In the immediate aftermath of victory, Pat Cummins called it “the greatest ODI innings ever” and it was hard to argue with the assessment,” he wrote.
“For much of it, Cummins had the best view in the house: 22 yards away from the extraordinary Glenn Maxwell, who played an innings for the ages and wrote himself into the game’s folklore as he took Australia from almost certain defeat by Afghanistan into the semi-finals.
“Maxwell made the highest score of this World Cup and the highest score in ODIs by an Australian, an unbeaten 201. He faced only 128 balls and hit 21 of them for four and ten for six, but the bare figures do little justice to the context or the drama of the innings as it unfolded through 38 scarcely believable overs.
“By the time Maxwell had finished, the superlatives had long seemed inadequate.