Andrew Gale: Maxwell is primed to be a match winner

GLENN MAXWELL has arrived at Yorkshire and he really seems to have the bit between his teeth.
Australian Glenn Maxwell arrives at Headingley for YorkshireAustralian Glenn Maxwell arrives at Headingley for Yorkshire
Australian Glenn Maxwell arrives at Headingley for Yorkshire

He didn’t have the best IPL and wants to get back into some form. Hopefully, with red ball and white ball, he can make some match-winning contributions.

We have seen when he’s in form that he can win a game on his own.

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For me, there’s no pressure on him and we just want him to go out and play freely. At times, we know he will get out in weird ways and he has just got to go out, enjoy himself and play that fearless brand of cricket that he plays.

Columnist 
Andrew Gale in action in the opening T20 match of the season.Columnist 
Andrew Gale in action in the opening T20 match of the season.
Columnist Andrew Gale in action in the opening T20 match of the season.

He seems like a really good lad and has fitted in well and I am sure he will go down well in our dressing room.

We made a good start to the T20 against Derbyshire and I thought it was a really good, professional performance.

In the first five overs, we struggled to find our lines and lengths, but Rich Pyrah and Matthew Fisher came on and changed the game really.

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For a young lad in Fisher to do what he did in getting five wickets on his debut in front of a 6,000 crowd was fantastic and shows how much of a bright future he has.

He takes everything in his stride and has obviously got a bit of pace. He also has very good control for his age and he is mature and knows what he is doing. For a lad of his age to perform as he did showed he is well ahead of his years.

But it was a good all-round performance and I thought we were pretty clinical in the end.

There’s a lot of talk about the future of T20 cricket in this country and having an IPL/Big Bash type of set-up in England.

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If we can get a slot in mid-season of two or three weeks to attract all the big players from around the world with city franchises or whatever you want to call it – we could just be called the Vikings for instance as people don’t just want to follow a city – I think it would work.

The number of teams would be cut down and you could auction for players and everyone would be free agents to go and sign for other counties.

I think that would be good for English cricket and I think it will happen now with Colin Graves in. Over a period of time, I can see it happening.

This week, we’ve had some competition in T20 games against league sides. I didn’t play at York on Wednesday, but it was good competition, I’m led to believe.

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It’s been a success, barring Tuesday night where it rained in Harrogate.

Fair play to the Bradford League on Monday, they had some really good players out and were a good unit and gave us a game.

It kept the lads in good form and Jonny Bairstow was outstanding in hitting 140. Credit to the Bradford League.

It’s back to the County Championship at Somerset on tomorrow and I have got mixed memories of Taunton.

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We have had a couple of games where they have knocked off big scores and we had another there where we bowled them out in the last quarter of an hour of the game and won with an under-strength team.

Taunton is a nice ground and you get value for your runs, while the pitch doesn’t seem to be as flat as it used to be and it’s a good, sporting wicket. Hopefully we can get amongst it.

Rooty was so close to a century for England on Thursday and it was disappointing for him not to get a hundred. He has got a great record at Lord’s and seems to enjoy playing there.

He and Stokes bailed the team out and I loved the way they came out and counter-punched and really took it to the New Zealanders.

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That’s the way that England have got to play now and the way the game is going. We will also see a lot of that as well for Australia in the summer.

Lythy got a good ball and that can happen to any opening batsman. But he looked at home and didn’t look like he was overawed by the atmosphere.

He looked set and he is probably glad to get that first knock out of the way.

I always think Lythy does better in the second innings where he seems to have a better record and hopefully he can get a few runs on the board.