Australia all-rounder Glenn Maxwell said that he still is reaping the consequences of having fractured his left leg in 2022 and added that it takes a lot of hard work every day to be able to play cricket pain-free.
Shortly after Australia's T20 World Cup campaign ended in the league stage, in 2022, Maxwell suffered a shattered fibula, chipped tibia and ruptured ankle ligaments on his left leg at a friend's 50th birthday party. The gruesome injuries kept Maxwell out of the 2023 Border-Gavaskar Trophy tour of India but got him to be a part of the ODI World Cup-winning team. It has cast questions over his leg's fitness to play Tests with Australia scheduled to tour Sri Lanka in February next year.
It is still my leg, and it is what is causing me the most heartache since I broke it, so it is not exactly a work in progress. It is something I have got to work hard at every day just to make sure it is in a position where I feel like I can get through a whole day of cricket unscathed and hopefully pain-free.
It takes a lot more rehab and a lot more time than other parts of my body … it's managing time on feet, lots of gym work, strengthening up different areas of my body and making sure I don't have those little niggles that set me back a couple of weeks each time," Maxwell told the *Daily Telegraph*.
Maxwell has not played a single Test for Australia since the 2017 tour of Bangladesh and has just two first-class cricket appearances since the end of 2019. The all-rounder said the Australian selectors have told him that they will pick an "outside the box" team for the Test tour of Sri Lanka.
They've been pretty open to selecting outside the box for players who do well in those conditions and knowing what it's like in Sri Lanka, I don't think Shield form is going to be a huge factor in how someone is going to go over there.
It's just completely different conditions, you've got to have a really solid game plan against spin and a really good idea of how you're going to tackle them in those conditions - it's a different beast. I understand that it might not look the same as a lot of the Australian teams that play in everyday Tests.
He was also any good in admitting not knowing whether Sheffield Shield form will be considered for Sri Lanka Test tour selections. "It would be great if I could get my body into a position where I can play over, But as far as Shield cricket, I'm not sure how much they'll take that into consideration."
Whether or not I need to prove I can get through four days of cricket before I play Test cricket. Hopefully my body's going really well and I can put my hand up for the Test stuff as well, but there's still a lot of work left to do and a lot of boxes to tick before then.
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