Tributes are flooding in from around the cricket world after Aussie star Glenn Maxwell announced his immediate retirement from the international game and first-class format. The 38-year-old had already retired from ODI cricket and hadn’t played a Test match since 2017.
On Monday he wasn’t named in Australia’s T20 international squad to face England this month. The Victorian has now retired from all formats of international cricket, but will continue to play T20 domestically – including for the Melbourne Stars in the BBL.
Maxwell finishes his international career with seven Tests, 149 ODIs and 130 T20 internationals to his name. He scored over 7000 runs and took 136 wickets at international level and will go down as one of Australia’s most destructive white-ball cricketers.
He scored 10 centuries and 35 fifties for Australia and won ODI World Cups in 2015 and 2023 and a T20 World Cup in 2021. His last game for Australia was at the T20 World Cup in February of this year.
“We probably had numerous discussions before and after the T20 World Cup,” Maxwell told the Final Word podcast. “And it was it was pretty open-ended. There wasn’t any pressure from that side [Australia team management], and we decided to sort of leave the door open.
“There was a couple of series that were coming up; they were going to look to the future, and we saw that in Bangladesh with guys getting their opportunity and performing really well.”
Glenn Maxwell celebrates after scoring the winning runs during at T20 for Australia in 2025. (Photo by Albert Perez – CA/Cricket Australia via Getty Images)
Maxwell admitted some sadness that he couldn’t finish up with a swansong in front of his home fans. “I suppose, a small hope or discussion that I might have been able to potentially get a send-off game at the MCG,” he added. “But I can completely understand the direction they’re going with this squad.
“There’s going to be a lot of change, I suppose, over the next 12 to 24 months with the Olympics coming up [in 2028]. And they’ve got to make sure that they get their eyeballs on a few young guys coming through and making sure that they’re getting exposed to international pressure that you probably can’t always get from a BBL fixture.”
Cricket world pays tribute to Glenn Maxwell
Maxwell also called it quits on his first-class and List-A career with Victoria after 15 years. One person wrote on social media: “All the best for your future endeavours Maxi, your innings against Afghanistan was an iconic one.”
Another person wrote: “Thank you for the memories Maxi.” While a third added: “Fantastic limited overs cricketer, nobody hit a reverse sweep better than Maxi. One of the game’s great entertainers.”
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