NEWS
Follow UsRoyal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) head coach Simon Katich feels Glenn Maxwell has shown a lot of maturity, especially with the way he batted against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) to take his team to a competitive total. With wickets falling around him, Maxwell batted sensibly, took the innings deep and in the end finished with 59 off 41 balls - his first IPL fifty in five years.
"He's shown a lot of maturity, particularly today (against SRH on Wednesday) when wickets were falling around him... He summed up the conditions really well and took the game deep, that's credit to him for his experience for summing it up and then executing right at the end when we needed some quick runs," Katich said in a video posted on RCB's website.
Maxwell had a torrid outing with Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) in IPL 2020, having scored only 108 runs at 15.42 and did not hit a single six. However, Katich believes that he has embraced his role quite well with RCB. "He's been magnificent. He's had a big role for us, first in the field helping Virat out there with field positioning to have the right guys in the right places at the right time. He has really embraced it," Katich said.
"He's taken a lot of the young guys under his wing at fielding practice, worked with him on that aspect of our game because we know that's an area we have to keep being good and really open up opportunities for run out and catches."
"He's been brilliant there but the big thing is obviously being with the bat. Both the times he's given himself a chance to get in stick to his game plan," he added.
The RCB head coach was also appreciative of the way RCB showed fighting spirit and defended a modest total. "It's certainly obviously gets tense, but I think spirit with which we played that was fantastic in both games, so regardless of result we're really proud of the way they go about it," he said.
"The fact that we got over the line both times is great. If we hadn't got over the line, then the fact that we fought really hard and stayed in the contest as long as we did, particularly tonight, when Warner and Pandey were putting on a very good partnership, and things were in their favour," he added.
Having win two games in as many matches in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021, RCB next take on Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on April 18, which will be their final match at Chepauk this season.