Sharjah: Kings XI Punjab captain George Bailey said he was in awe of batsman Glenn Maxwell’s talent after his fellow Australian produced another match-winning knock against Rajasthan Royals in the Pepsi Indian Premier League (IPL) 2014 on Sunday.
After seeing the Kings XI past Chennai Super Kings with a brilliant 95 last week, Maxwell repeated the trick with 89 from 45 balls, including eight fours and six sixes, as Punjab maintained their winning start to the tournament.
Afterwards, Australia Twenty20 skipper Bailey said: “I’m in awe. Watching his highlights from that innings [against Chennai], it’s like career highlights of most players. He’s played nine or ten shots in that one innings that 95 per cent of us would be happy to play over our careers.
“Obviously he is in great touch. He’s obviously got a lot of confidence and he has, while it might not look like that all the time, pretty good plans for most bowlers.”
Bailey also made it a point to highlight Cheteshwar Pujara’s contribution in the victory. The India opener scored a patient unbeaten 40 from 38 balls as Maxwell and David Miller, who finished 51 not out from 19 balls, blitzed the bowlers from the other end.
“In a chase like that, it’s always nice to have wickets in hand. Puj [Pujara] obviously played that role really. He got Maxi [Maxwell] on strike well and then he got Dave [Miller] on strike and he chipped in with a couple of boundaries late on when we really needed them,” Bailey said.
“We know what we are going to get from Puj. We know we want consistency and it’s nice to have someone we can bat around. There will be wickets that suit him more and that was the really pleasing thing for me, the way he worked those partnerships with those guys. It’s really important for our team.”
Bailey is one of the more articulate cricketers around, but he was somewhat taken aback in his post-match media conference when he was asked how he would describe the game if he was a journalist.
He responded: “Describing a match is your job. You come up with 20 ways to describe us when we are no good, so I’m sure you can come up with a couple for this match.
“[For me] it was unbelievable. There’s no other way to describe it. Extraordinary, awesome. That’s all I have got. You will have to come up with the rest.”
