Australian star Glenn Maxwell lit up the Big Bash League on Sunday, smashing 90 off 52 balls including an incredible 79 out of 81 runs in a BBL-record eight wicket partnership with Usama Mir.
In an intra-city derby between Melbourne Stars and Melbourne Renegades at the Docklands Stadium, Renegades skipper Will Sutherland won the toss and put the Stars in to bat.
His decision looked to be vindicated as the Stars stood at a meagre 17-2 after four overs, having lost Sam Harper and Ben Duckett. By the seventh over, they had slid to 45-4, bringing Glenn Maxwell to the crease.
But even as Maxwell remained firm at one end, he began to run out of partners. Marcus Stoinis holed out at long on in the eighth over before Hilton Cartwright nicked off in the tenth. Joel Paris was run out in spectacular fashion by Harry Dixon off the final ball of the 11th over to leave the Stars struggling at 75-7.
At that point, Maxwell was on 10 off eight balls, and Pakistani leg spinner Usama Mir walked out at No.9.
The Stars took their two-over Power Surge immediately, and Maxwell managed to retain strike for all 12 balls and collect 21 runs for his side, including two sixes. Mir's first ball faced was the final one of the 14th over, which he kept out.
In a masterclass in farming the strike, Maxwell managed to make sure that he stayed at the batting end and find the boundary with regularity. He took 17 runs off Kane Richardson in the 17th over, including a massive 122-metre long six. He started the 18th with three maximums in a row off opposition skipper Sutherland, eventually taking 22 off the over.
The Maxwell-Mir partnership came to an end in the 19th over, when Mir was stumped trying to go after Jacob Bethell. But their 81-run stand lasting 45 balls (a Big Bash League record for the eighth wicket) didn't tell the whole story.
Maxwell had scored 79 of those 81 runs, with the other two coming from extras. Perhaps somehow even more extraordinary, he had faced a staggering 40 out of 45 balls – in fact, this was 40 out of 42 before Mir faced the last three deliveries of the stand. But this is not new for Maxwell – he had managed similar in the 2023 World Cup against Afghanistan, when his 201* was voted as Wisden's No.1 men's ODI innings of the year.
The 'Big Show' eventually lost his wicket in the final over, chopping the ball onto his stumps for 90, but the Stars managed to post 165 – a scarcely believable score from 75-7. They then went on to bowl the Renegades out for 123, Joel Paris and Mark Steketee taking 8-30 in eight overs between them to complete one of the more remarkable turnarounds in the league's history.
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