Australian all-rounder Glenn Maxwell has made shocking revelations about former Indian skipper Virender Sehwag.
In his new book titled “Glenn Maxwell The Showman”, the Australian cricketer opened up on the difficult times he experienced during his stint at Kings XI Punjab in the IPL 2017 season when Sehwag served as the team’s mentor.
Reflecting on the IPL 2017 when he was made captain of the team, Maxwell claimed that the former Indian opening batter held all the power over the selection of the team.
“When it came to selection, I thought it might be a good idea to bring the coaches into a WhatsApp group to make our decisions. Everyone agreed to this and shared their teams, with the exception of Sehwag. At the end of the process, he made it clear that he would pick the starting XI, end of story,” he wrote in his book.
According to Glenn Maxwell, the then-mentor of Kings XI Punjab continued making decisions “that didn’t necessarily make sense.”
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“Privately, though, I had coaches and players coming to me asking what on earth was going on, and I found it difficult to give them a straight answer,” he said.
The Australian all-rounder revealed that Sehwag removed him from the main WhatsApp group after the team failed to qualify for the playoffs of IPL 2017.
“Upon getting onto the team bus, I found I’d been deleted from the main WhatsApp group. What was going on here? By the time we reached the hotel my phone was blowing up, with Sehwag having unloaded on me as a ‘big disappointment,’ blaming me for not taking responsibility as captain, and all the rest. It was unpleasant, especially when I thought we had parted on good terms,” he wrote.
Glenn Maxwell recalled texting Virender Sehwag about the ‘unpleasant’ statement despite parting ways on good terms.
“I texted him to say how much it hurt to read those comments and added that he had lost a fan in me for the way he had conducted himself. Sehwag’s response was simple: ‘Don’t need fan like you.’ We never spoke again,” he said.
