Glenn Maxwell hopes India will be haunted by memories of its miserable summer in Australia when the two teams meet in Thursday's World Cup semifinal here. “I think we targeted them pretty well this summer,” he said.
“They haven’t won a game against us all summer, hopefully we can make the most of that. Hopefully that is pretty clear in their memories. We’ve been dominant all summer in the ODI format.”
Maxwell was speaking to reporters at the Kingsford Smith airport here, on arrival from Adelaide after Australia's quarterfinal defeat of Pakistan.
“It was a little bit uncomfortable at times but when you look at the overall result with six wickets and 90-odd balls left, it is a very comfortable win,” he said of the match.
“We controlled the momentum of the game whole way through. Apart from that, it was an unbelievable spell from Wahab Riaz. Full credit to him, that was pretty incredible.”
Maxwell finished unbeaten on 44, an innings that included an outrageous, blind, tennis-style slap through point for four. “And to clarify, the shot is called the back away, look away, deliberate cut through point... Haha! Well bowled Wahab! Had me,” he wrote on Twitter afterwards.
The 26-year-old revealed that it was not a shot he had manufactured impromptu. “I have practised that shot in the nets,” he said.
“You spend most of your net sessions facing Mitchell Johnson, Starc, Cummins and Hazlewood so you have to find ways of avoiding them or hit them. I have been doing my best to try and practice that.”
Maxwell felt his time in IPL, where he finished as the season's third-highest run-maker last year, would not greatly affect his chances of success against India's bowlers. “The IPL is a bit different to the World Cup, it is different pressure, different situations,” he said.
“I bat at No. 6 (for Australia) and there are still five guys ahead of me who are going to be batting first. Hopefully they can make the most of the conditions. My job is to finish it off.”
India's spinners may look forward to bowling at the SCG, where last week Imran Tahir and J-P. Duminy took seven wickets between them in South Africa's victory over Sri Lanka. Maxwell, however, wished otherwise.
“Hopefully (it will be) a fast one. It has been a pretty good wicket this year and hopefully there is a bit of grass there as well,” he said.
Australia would make similar plans to the ones that caused India's downfall in the Test and triangular series, Maxwell stated. “We haven’t had a team meet yet, but it will be pretty similar to the summer,” he said.
“We did pretty well during the summer against them. I am sure we will go ahead with similar plans and we will have a few tricks up our sleeve.”
