Published: 8:02AM Monday March 23, 2015 Source: AAP
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The back away, look away, deliberate cut through point.
Hard enough to describe, try pulling it off in a World Cup quarter-final.
Glenn Maxwell revealed the latest creation in his bag of batting tricks on Friday, when he scored a quickfire 44 not out to help book Australia's spot in an SCG semi-final against India.
Faced with the prospect of a bouncer barrage from express paceman Wahab Riaz, Maxwell opted to fight fire with fire.
The Victorian shuffled to the legside then contorted his body to slap two short balls to the offside.
The first variant went awry and Sohail Khan dropped a catch he should have taken in the deep.
The next was far more successful, with the ball racing along the ground to the rope.
As is so often the case with Maxwell, it looked to be an off-the-cuff attempt to think outside the textbook.
The reality is he had been honing it in the nets against Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Johnson, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins.
"Which is quite dumb," said Maxwell.
"They follow me a lot in the nets and try to hit me.
"So I've actually played it a fair bit recently. It's probably the first time I brought it out in a game and hit it like that."
Maxwell insisted it was controlled chaos.
"It might not have looked that way, but I hit it basically perfect," he said, when asked if the ball was meant to go to point.
The 26-year-old added it was all about trying to score runs instead of ducking and weaving for a dot ball.
"There's always bowling that can tie you down. I suppose what we've got to do as batters is just keep coming up with new ways to combat that," he said.
"That's something I've probably improved on over the last 12 months.
"Not so much having more shots, but having the awareness of when to play them."
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