Fastest 50s, 100s are cool feats: Maxi

Glenn Maxwell celebrates his century on Wednesday. Pic/PTI

Like his mercurial batting, Glenn Maxwell does not beat around the bush when answering probing questions from the media. He is dead honest and his responses are both straightforward and backhanded, much like his unconventional reverse sweeps and pulls interspersing orthodox strokes.

After scoring a breathtaking century off just 40 balls, the fastest ever in a World Cup, he was asked if he watches the scoreboard and keeps a tag on the number of balls he has faced, his candid reply was "Yes." Many players would have preferred a diplomatic response like "No, I play for the team first. And in the process, if a record comes by, I take it."

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Maxi honestly said: "I love the fastest 50, fastest 100 records. I think they're pretty cool records. Sometimes to the detriment of myself, I've always probably pushed the boundaries a bit too much. I think against Afghanistan in 2015 (World Cup), I was 88 off 37 and I was like I'm getting into the next two balls I hit one straight to cover and butchered it. I think I got my fastest 100 in the next game.

"I've been in those positions before (when I realized) I could make fast hundreds. I know when I get on the run - I'm difficult to bowl to. It's just about getting past the first ball," He was probed further when he was asked if a century was on his mind when he was on 75 with two overs remaining, he said: "It wasn't really on my mind. I was going to try and farm the strike for the back end. I think it was about five overs to go and I told Pat (Cummins) that I was going to try and control the last five overs as much as I possibly could. If I got it on a run, I thought there was no point in taking singles because it might just be a single back and forth where I could get a bunch of balls in a row and hopefully find some hitting."

Maxi took apart Bas de Leede in the penultimate over when he struck him for two fours and three back-to-back sixes to race away to his record century. On the 49th over he said "On a ground like this (at Kotla) if you can put pressure on a certain bowler and get a hold of them a couple of times in a row, you can produce mistakes, you can produce errors. I felt like that was what I did in the 49th over. I was able to put pressure on his good balls to get bad balls, where I could actually hit for sixes.

So, I suppose that was just my tactics at the back end. I was lucky enough to get a couple of full tosses at the back end, which highlighted, I suppose, there was a pretty good chance I was going to get 100," he concluded summing up his brilliant knock.