Australia’s swashbuckling all-rounder Glenn Maxwell revealed details of his fall-out with Virender Sehwag, one of India’s batting greats, during the duo’s association with the Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) in different capacities back in the Indian Premier League 2017 season.
In his recently-published book, ‘The Showman’, Maxwell has alleged that Sehwag pulled the strings as the franchise’s Director of Cricket Operations, and even rubber-stamped the playing XI without consultations with him (captain) and the coach J Arunkumar, which he claimed led to confusion among the coaching staff and players.
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“We discussed how the team would operate and I thought we were all on the same page,” Maxwell wrote.
“How wrong I was. Our coach, J Arunkumar, was coming in for his first season, and it became clear to him that he was coach in name only, with Sehwag pulling the strings. Winning papers over cracks, and as we got up in the first two games, the confusion behind the scenes was ignored. Privately, though, I had coaches and players coming to me asking what on earth was going on, and I found it difficult to give them a straight answer,” he added.
“When it came to selection, I thought it might be a good idea to bring the coaches into a WhatsApp group to make our decisions. Everyone agreed to this and shared their teams, with the exception of Sehwag. At the end of the process, he made it clear that he would pick the starting XI, end of story. We were losing on and off the field by now, with Sehwag on more than one occasion making decisions that didn’t necessarily make sense.”
Recounting the ordeal, Maxwell detailed the challenging end to the IPL 2017 season, where his team faced a humiliating defeat against Pune. Maxwell said that he felt proud of his leadership and performance throughout the season despite failing to advance to the playoffs.
Don’t need a fan like you: Sehwag
The all-rounder said that he volunteered to address the post-match press conference, but Sehwag took responsibility. However, what triggered the fallout between the two was when Maxwell found himself being kicked out of the team’s Whatsapp group, and later learnt that Sehwag had blamed him as a “big disappointment.”
“The season came down to our final group game against Pune away from home, and we had a shocker batting first on a wet wicket, rolled for 73. It was all over. In the context of what was going on, I’m still quite proud of how we were able to broadly keep the show on the road until that stage. I was also happy with how I performed, doing the right thing as leader by giving myself the chance to influence games at the right time with bat and ball. Of course, we were all flat not to make the post-season, but it could have been so much worse,” Maxwell wrote.
“I volunteered to do press that night, but Sehwag said he would instead. Upon getting onto the team bus, I found I’d been deleted from the main WhatsApp group. What was going on here? By the time we reached the hotel my phone was blowing up, with Sehwag having unloaded on me as a “big disappointment”, blaming me for not taking responsibility as captain, and all the rest. It was unpleasant, especially when I thought we had parted on good terms.”
“I texted him to say how much it hurt to read those comments and added that he had lost a fan in me for the way he had conducted himself. Sehwag’s response was simple: ‘Don’t need a fan like you.’ We never spoke again.”
He also mentioned about his return to the Punjab franchise in the post-Sehwag era after the Covid-induced lockdown in 2020 did not work out in terms of his performances, and back home during India’s tour of Australia in 2021, he apologised to KL Rahul (former Punjab Kings skipper).
Maxwell also thanked Virat Kohli for approaching him with an irresistible offer of playing for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru during the same tour Down Under.
“But I still felt there had to be a twist in this story, and there was. Who to thank? Virat Kohli. On that same tour of Australia, he wanted to whisper an idea to me: him, me and AB de Villiers to be the middle order at Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2021. I was in love with this before he finished his sentence. Having started with Sachin and Ricky, the chance to bat with the equivalent of them in my own generation, in those gold pads no less, was irresistible.”
“Before then, auctions had come and gone. This time, though, I was obsessed. When the paddle came down for me from RCB, I was the happiest cricketer in the world. It was in Bangalore where I would begin my second act as a player. And it is what I learned in Bangalore colours that would allow me to play the most important cricket of my life,” he added.
