Swashbuckling Australian cricketer Glenn Maxwell believes a persisting narrative about him and his relationship with alcohol is unfair.
Maxwell has discussed the issue in his new book called The Showman, and knows he has made some mistakes in his past.
But he now believes he has been tarnished with a bad brush and he just can’t escape.
Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today
“(The) loose-unit narrative about me is impossible to disperse,” Maxwell said in the book.
“Do I feel it’s been unfair at times? Yeah. There’s certain incidents when I’ve stuffed up, that’s fair. But when I haven’t stuffed up and it gets judged like that, that’s where I get a bit frustrated.”
A series of incidents from the end of 2022 certainly didn’t help perceptions of the superstar allrounder.
There was “innocuous” incident at a friend’s 50th birthday party where he slipped and broke his leg in 2022.
Then, in 2023, there was a freak incident where he fell off the back of a golf cart which forced him into concussion protocols.
Then, at the start of 2024, when he was watching Brett Lee’s band perform in Adelaide, he was taken to hospital by an ambulance in what was dubbed at the time as an “alcohol-related incident”.
It was a bad run … which followed his wife Vini’s miscarriage in 2022, and his battle with depression in 2019.
Now, Maxwell says the mud that has been thrown at him, and it has completely stuck.
“I find it unfair that anything that happens away from the game of cricket, it gets related to alcohol. That’s what I find frustrating,” he said.
“Like, if I go for a coffee and slip over on the side of the road and someone goes, ‘Oh Maxwell, another alcohol-related incident, falls down a drainpipe,’ it’s like well it’s 10 in the morning, it’s been raining.
“Was he out the night before? How many drinks did he have the night before?
“Then it’s all of a sudden like, ‘Well, I had one.’ So it is alcohol-related. Where does it stop? That’s where I get a little bit frustrated.
“I’m no different to any other cricketer.
“I pick and choose my times that I can try to be at my best for game day, training days and all that other sort of stuff. To say that I’ve done it to the detriment of my career at any stage I think is unfair.”
In an interview with News Corp, Maxwell did touch on an incident in 2017 in India which was later reported on by a local newspaper.
He was playing with the Kings XI Punjab at the time and after a game he got drunk and then got lost while riding his bike to the team hotel.
“I had a night at a different hotel. That was a bad night,” he said
“I was at fault. But at least that was at the end of the game, that was post-game. I’d rather not talk about that one.
“I hated that night, that was a bad night. I was scared that night and I’d rather not talk about it.
“That was the most scared I’d been on a night, trying to get back to the hotel and get lost in the middle of India.”
The Showman is co-written with Adam Collins.
Outside of discussing some of those incidents, his recovery from the broken leg, and journey from Melbourne suburban boy to World Cup hero, it also touches on his relationships (said to be “challenging”) with Steve Smith, Justin Langer and more.
