The highest bought man at the IPL auction is yet to appear for his franchise.
Mumbai Indians’ Glenn Maxwell is fast becoming the most pricey waterboy in IPL history as the franchise made him the most expensive player of 2013, only to never play him in the tournament.
Back in February Mumbai paid £650,000 for the Australian in the IPL auction and yet with the competition reaching its final stages Maxwell is still yet to feature.
It’s approaching two months since the all-rounder played any sort of competitive cricket, with his last outing being with the national team on 22 March.
Maxwell was drafted into the Australia Test side during their 4-0 whitewash series in India after four players were suspended for not doing their homework.
The 24-year-old played in Hyderabad and Delhi although only managed to score 39 runs in four innings and took bowling figures from the two Tests of 7-193.
Despite a modest return for the national side Maxwell is considered a Twenty20 specialist and his absence from the Mumbai starting XI is made even more bewildering by the prominence of spinners in the sixth version of the tournament.
The Australian bowls off-break and yet veterans Pragyan Ojha and Harbhajan Singh have been preferred ahead of Maxwell in the spinning role.
Even seamers Mitchell Johnson and Lasith Malinga have had more of a run in the team, despite the fact Malinga is yet to produce the form that has catapulted to him to the role of best Twenty20 bowler in the world.
With only four matches left for Mumbai – followed by the play-offs if they qualify – many are beginning to wonder why they even bothered paying such high costs for a cricketer they had no intention of playing.
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