Glenn Maxwell battled through pain and became the first batter to hit a double hundred in a run chase in ODIs in a magnificent evening in Mumbai on November 7.
Afghanistan had posted a challenging total of 291 in their 50 overs on the back of Ibrahim Zadran’s historic World Cup hundred. Zadran received support at the end from Rashid Khan, who played a blinder to help them get the score.
The Australian chase was completely in tatters as they lost Travis Head for a duck in the second over of the game. The aggressive innings from Mitchell Marsh came to an end quickly as well as Naveen got two wickets before Azmat Omarzai would clean up David Warner and get Josh Inglis out in consecutive deliveries.
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Marnus Labuschagne, Marcus Stoinis and Mitchell Starc would get out shortly after with Pat Cummins joining Maxwell in the middle with the score at 91 for seven. The all-rounder had a couple of lucky moments as well during the day.
Omarzai had gone for a review on his very first ball before Hashmatullah Shahidi and Mujeeb ur Rahman dropped catches to give him another lease of life. He would also survive a leg before wicket shout as he reviewed the decision and it went in his favour.
Maxwell would ride on his luck and get to his hundred in 76 balls before cramps would hamper his ability to run between the wickets. However, the all-rounder refused to be taken off the field and started to tee off with some incredible shots.
This also included a reverse sweep off Omarzai for a six that got the crowd on their feet.
He would breeze past David Warner score of 178 in 2015 against Afghanistan with a six and a couple of singles, which was the highest score by an Australian batter in the World Cup. He would then absolutely brutalize Mujeeb for three sixes and a boundary to get to his landmark in style and get the win for his side in the end.
Maxwell’s innings consisted of 21 boundaries and 10 sixes and came in 128 deliveries. This was also the fastest double hundred in World Cup history and the second fastest in ODIs.