Glenn Maxwell has played his greatest innings for Australia and in ODI history as well. Sachin Tendulkar, Kapil Dev, Viv Richards have played such innings where their respective teams won from nowhere because of their innings. Glenn Maxwell literally played a one-man army innings on one leg to win for his country.
No one imagined Afghanistan to run Australia to this length. But they could with the help of good swing bowling. But their major weapon spin bowling did not help them to win the match. Maxwell has destroyed their spinner as they kept bowling easy balls to hit. Mujeeb Ur Rahman has been off color through out the match. His last over and dropped catch have cost Afghanistan the match as well.
Earlier, Afghanistan won the toss and elected to bat first. Ibrahim Zadran scored first century for Afghan in CWCs. He sheet anchored the innings as an opener and scored 129 runs from 143 balls. He made up in the death overs for being slow. Rashid Khan(35) has pushed the score to 291/5 in 50 overs at Wankhede. Josh Hazlewood(2/39) looked best of all Australia bowlers.
In the chase, Afghanistan have been all over the Aussie batters. They lost 7 wickets for 91. Mitchell Starc did not take review, even though he did not touch the ball. That’s how down in the dumps they looked at that moment. Australia looked like they have accepted defeat with no way to escape. Glenn Maxwell at this moment gave a catch and Mujeeb dropped a straight-forward chance.
From here, Maxwell kept going after the bowlers like Noor Ahmed, Mujeeb. He did not give them a chance, even though he cramped and had a back spasm. Pat Cummins just kept one side held for him with 12 runs from 68 balls. He kept away balls from Rashid Khan and Naveen-ul-Haq. Maxwell did all the scoring with boundaries and sixes, when no one gave him a chance.
He heroically evaded embarrassment for Australia with 201 from 128 balls. He has hit 21 fours and 10 sixes in his innings. Also, he has become the first Australian to score double hundred in CWC and this is highest indivdual score for an Aussie in ODIs. Glenn Maxwell played a dream-come-true innings that will be remembered in history as a special effort forever.