'He's been a little casual': Cheteshwar Pujara, Sanjay Bangar on Glenn Maxwell's IPL struggles

Cheteshwar Pujara and former India batting coach Sanjay Bangar have criticised Glenn Maxwell's poor performance in the Indian Premier League, where he has struggled to score even 100 runs in 16 matches across two seasons with different franchises. Maxwell's current stint with Punjab Kings, who acquired him for Rs 4.2 Crore in the mega auction, has been particularly disappointing with just 41 runs in six matches at an average of 8.20.
Maxwell's struggles began during his time with Royal Challengers Bengaluru last year, where he scored only 32 runs in six matches before requesting a break. Upon his return, he managed just 21 more runs in four matches.
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Despite joining both IPL seasons in good form, Maxwell's performance drastically declined once the tournament began. His difficulties against spin bowling have become increasingly evident.

"The way he bats hasn't changed much. He hasn't changed the way he has approached the IPL. There have been times where he's been a little casual. He's the same what he was maybe eight-ten years ago. I'm a little critical, but there are times where as a player you need to wake up," Pujara said.
"You need to realise you're getting an opportunity to play and be part of a franchise where things are at stake. And there are times a player can get casual, they're not worried about what's happening. I'm sure he wants to perform but when you're not performing there's a fine line of being causal and just trying to pull up your socks and trying to perform. He has to find that balance, if there was any other player he would've been out of the XI, but because he's Maxwell he's getting that opportunity," Pujara added.

Former RCB coach Bangar provided insight into Maxwell's performance differences between teams. "It's a hard one, to decipher how Maxwell operates, his run of consistency or otherwise. Those three years at RCB, he had a couple of batters around him who took the attention away from him. There was Virat [Kohli], Faf du Plessis - he wasn't really the main guy the team looked up to for miracles. He was expected to do those impactful performances, and he was delivering quite well. Here in a new role [at PBKS], he's batting slightly lower down the order as well, for me they're still looking at him as a primary overseas batter, which wasn't the case with RCB."

"For the first two-three games, we saw a different Maxwell, he was trying to take the bowling on from ball one. In the last two innings, he was happy to spend some time in the middle. Till the time he got out to Varun [Chakravathy's] googly [in the previous game against KKR], he was giving himself time, played good cricketing shots. He played a back foot drive past point. If he'd started with this approach, the pressure wouldn't have been so much. Now it's this way or that. I don't think Punjab will be patient to stick with him if they were to drop a couple of games, by which time the season would be on the line," Bangar said.
Punjab Kings will face Royal Challengers Bengaluru in their next IPL match on Friday, hoping for Maxwell to return to form.