Australia’s middle-order batsman, Glenn Maxwell, raised a few eyebrows last year by taking a sabbatical from the game, citing mental health issues.
With an annihilating 29-ball 64 against Sri Lankan bowling attack in a T20I international at Adelaide, back in October 2019, Maxwell decided to take a break from cricket after the subsequent game in Brisbane.
Maxwell only came back during the 2019-20 season of Big Bash League (BBL), while representing the Melbourne Stars.
The ‘Big Show’ showed no sign of fatigue during the limited-overs series against India, earlier in 2020, where he scored a majestic ton.
Now, Kings XI Punjab’s (KXIP) chief recruit from the last auctions, ‘Maxi’ has opened up to struggles coping up with the mental aspects of the game.
The Australian swashbuckler has claimed about feeling like ‘lifeless cardboard’ with the ‘demons strangling his mind’ and pushing ‘self-destruction mode’.
“I probably noticed it around September last year. When I finally came out in November so I probably held on to it for too long with that following me around. It wore me down and I forgot who I was as a person. I felt like a cardboard cut out of a cricketer who got put on a plane, on a bus, at a cricket ground and I just had to put on a smile and pretend everything was okay,” Maxwell told Cricbuzz.
“Inside my mind, I was in a self-destruction mode. When I put my hand up and said everything was imploding in my mind, they were so good to allow me that time away from the game. Aaron Finch, Peter Handscomb, Marcus Stoinis – I am close to these guys and we speak about this,” he added.
“You have to have a friendship and people who you can trust where you know they are going to have your best interest in their heart all the time,” Maxwell concluded.
Maxwell will join his former IPL team, KXIP, in the thirteenth edition of the IPL. However, he is expected to join the KXIP camp only after mid- September, due to international commitments.
