Glenn Maxwell points out how Virat Kohli's selfishness lost India the 4th ODI
Glenn Maxwell ruffled some feathers at the post-match conference after the 3rd ODI, saying that Indian batsmen are ‘milestone-driven’, implying that chasing personal records often put the Indian team’s interests at risk. He was happy to elaborate on his assertion on Thursday, dissecting the ‘selfishness’ in Virat Kohli’s century in the 4th ODI.
Saying that he expected a media frenzy after his comments, Maxwell said, “I knew it was going to blow up. Especially since I tried to slog the last ball.”
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Maxwell himself perished on 96 in the 3rd ODI in an attempt to hit a boundary when only a single was needed for victory, but it is true that Maxwell’s striving for personal glory on that occasion is excusable because his team’s win had already been sealed.
On Thursday, on eve of the final ODI at Sydney, Maxwell described what he had meant by Indian batsmen’s selfishness – “I was sent a photo the other day, it said Virat was 84 off 63, and then 100 off 89 or something like that. He got his last 11 runs off 22 balls to get his hundred.”
“I thought about that and I was like, ‘Jeez he did it so easily all the way up until then, and then you just lose a bit of momentum’. Then you look on the other hand, when you watch David Warner get into the 90s and he tries to hit Ishant Sharma for a slog-sweep for six. To me, that’s two complete different ends of the spectrum.
“And then you look at the scoreline and you see 4-0.”