File photo of Glenn Maxwell.© X (formerly Twitter)
Victoria captain Will Sutherland has confirmed Australian cricketer Glenn Maxwell will be available for a couple of Sheffield Shield matches in the early part of the summer as the allrounder wants to be back in Australia's Test set up for Sri Lanka tour in January and February next year. According to ESPNcricinfo, the 36-year-old cricketer is in England with Australia's ODI team and has not played any Sheffield Shield match for Victoria since February 2023 and has played two first-class matches in the last five years due to his white-ball duties and his leg injury.
The Shield round is set to begin from October 8, the Australian ODI team will return from England early next week.
Victoria will host Tasmania at the Junction Oval in Melbourne before a lasrge group of Australian international stars join their respective teams in the second Shield round starting from October 20 when Victoria will host New South Wales at the MCG.
Australia's home ODI and T20I series against Pakistan will overlap with the the third and fourth Shield rounds from November 4-18.
Australia A will engage for two first-class games with India A in November.
There will be two more Shield rounds which will start from November 24 and December 6 respectively while the Border-Gavaskar series will be underway just before the Big Bash League (BBL) starts.
Maxwell was a part part of the Sri Lanka Test series in 2022, as he was considered to be a spin bowling allrounder for the spinning conditions in Galle.
He played all his Test matches on the subcontinent with his last coming in Bangladesh in 2017.
Victoria is keen to have Maxwell play for them in red-ball cricket in the early part of summer and it will be an opportunity for him to get into the rhythm, as he has played the red-ball format very little in recent years.
"I think he'll be available for a couple and I believe he's keen to play as well," Sutherland said, as per quoted by ESPNcricinfo.
"Obviously, things can change with him playing at the moment, but to have a player like Glenn potentially come into our side is a bit of a luxury, so hopefully that can work out nicely," he added.
Maxwell played his last first-class game for Warwickshire in the county championship last year where he scored 81 off 67 deliveries and bowled 24 overs across two innings.
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