Maxwell makes surprise request ahead of T20 World Cup

April 16 - Experienced Australia all-rounder Glenn Maxwell has revealed he asked to sit out a recent Indian Premier League (IPL) match to give himself a 'mental and physical break' ahead of June's ICC Men's T20 World Cup.

Maxwell watched on from the sidelines as his Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) fell to a 25-run loss to Sunrisers Hyderabad on Monday, with the Australia star admitting after the match that he had asked team management to omit him from the side.

The 35-year-old has made an indifferent start to the ongoing IPL season with just 32 runs from six innings and the dip in form has seen the highly-rated RCB outfit manage just one win from seven matches and sees them languish at the bottom of the IPL table.

With Maxwell set to play a major role in Australia's tilt for T20 World Cup success in the USA and Caribbean in June, the veteran said he requested to team management that he be dropped from the side so he could reset ahead of the 20-over showcase.

“After the first few games hadn’t gone to plan personally for me, it was a pretty easy decision,” Maxwell said. 

“I went to (RCB captain Faf du Plessis) and the coaches last game and said it was time to probably try someone else.

"I have been in this situation before in the past, where you can keep playing and dig yourself into a hole. Now is actually the best time to give myself a mental and physical break. With our results this year, it was quite an easy decision. We haven’t been playing as well as we would have liked as a team, and the results show that.

"My personal results have reflected the results we have had. Pretty big deficiency straight after the Powerplay and the middle overs, which have been an area of strength of mine the last couple of seasons. I felt like I wasn’t contributing in a positive way and it felt like, with the position we find ourselves at the table, to give someone else the opportunity to try their wares and hopefully, someone can make the spot their own.”

Maxwell entered the IPL in great touch, having played a major role in helping Australia to a memorable ICC Men's Cricket World Cup title at the end of last year and backed that up with T20I centuries against India and West Indies either side of the new year.

But it's been tough going for Maxwell at RCB, with his innings of 28 against Kolkata Knight Riders at the end of last month the only time he has scored in double figures.

"I probably just haven't got away, it's as simple as that," Maxwell admitted.

"In the first few games, I felt like I made reasonably good decisions but was still finding ways to get out.

"It can happen in T20 cricket and when it can snowball like that and you feel like you’re not getting the runs, you can start to go searching and try too hard and forget about the basics of the game.

"Even if you look at the first game, I ran one off the middle of the bat to the keeper by picking up the length really well.

"I saw a scoring opportunity and I opened the face (of the bat) a little bit too much, and when you're going really well, that goes just wide of the gloves, you get a boundary and you're four off one and all of a sudden you're away for the tournament.

"T20 cricket can be like that sometimes, it's a pretty fickle game."