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A
couple of summers ago I was having a beer in Salisbury with a few cricket
buddies. The New Inn has an outside fire pit, sort of a cross between an open
fire and a bonfire, which lends conversations around it an appealing, ‘gather
round’ storyteller type vibe. Anyway we were talking cricket, inevitably, when
someone from outside our little party chimed in with a cricket story of their
own.
It
turns out that The New Inn runs a friendly cricket team, and the story he was
telling concerned the derring-do of some young Aussie kid who was over for the
season. This kid was contracted to South Wilts, and was casting around for any
cricket at all when he wasn’t engaged with them. So he’d turned out for the
pub.
We
all leaned in around the fire to hear the tall tales of houses being cleared,
and the look on old whasisname’s face when he stuck one in the field beyond the
river, etc. The conclusion of this story was that apparently this kid was playing
the T20s for Hampshire.
What
did you say his name was? Greg something? No: Glen. Glen Something.
A
month or so later we were at the Rose Bowl to witness Glen Something – tall and
whip-thin, looking hungover and in need of a shave and a square meal – get out
cheaply and have his off-breaks tonked all over Hedge End.
Another
maybe-kid found wanting at the next level up? Well, hang on. Don’t go to the
bar yet. The story’s about to get good.
In
February last year, he’d just got out for a golden duck and was busy kicking
the furniture at the back of the changing room, when Michael Clarke broke the
news to Glenn Maxwell that he’d topped the IPL auction at $1m, making him the
most expensive cricketer in the world. Within the month he’d made his Test
debut for Australia.
Fast
forward a year and he still looks like a skinny kid who doesn’t get enough
sleep.
But
he also looks like world cricket’s form batsman. Inventive flips, outrageous
scoops and reverse whatevers, effortless drives and monstrous cow corner
smashes translate regularly into thirty-ball fifties or fifty-ball nineties.
Despite the fizzle rather than bang he went out on, he was this year’s
highlight of cricket’s own highlights package: the Indian Premier League. Few
currently would bet against him following Warner’s career path from T20 upstart
to destructive Test staple.
He still
looks like he likes a beer, too, and could probably spin the tallest of tales
around that storyteller’s campfire.
And
now the IPL has crashed down from its manic sugar high, ‘Maxi’ is on his way
back to play the T20s for Hampshire again. I might have to pop down for one or
two, see if he can’t do better than last time. I reckon he just might.
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