Glenn Maxwell Makes His Own Destiny

With his double century against Afghanistan in ODI World Cup, Glenn Maxwell tested our understanding of the permissible limit of sporting excellence

- Ravi Raj

If you don't pronounce every victory as the greatest, every defeat the most tragic, every innings the zenith of excellence seldom chartered since the discovery of fire, then what's even the point of watching sports? But if you have watched the absolute carnage of Glenn Maxwell, his devastating double century against Afghanistan in the World Cup, then you can't help but indulge in hyperboles; it's the last resort to describe something whose immensity takes days to drown. How else do you describe what Maxwell achieved in Mumbai? 'Terrific' is how Maxwell himself described his matchwinning double-century, and indeed, terrific it was, among other things.

By the time Maxwell's turn to take strike came, the game was long gone, a battle that was to be fought just for the sake of it. No amount of blood, sweat, and tears would have averted what awaited the destiny of Australia, and Maxwell himself. The scoreboard, too, affirmed it. Destiny was written, already. Or that is what you thought. In Maxwell's exhilarating world, destiny doesn't indicate finality and irreversibility, but something that can be changed at one's will.