Australia batsman Glenn Maxwell has admitted that he was hurt after being implicated in the match-fixing documentary released in May this year.
The Ranchi Test between India and Australia in 2017 was one of several matches brought into question by the documentary. One of the fixers in the documentary had claimed that two Aussie batsmen were paid off to bat slowly in a particular session.
Although the identity of the players was not revealed, the state of play implicated that the batsmen concerned were Steve Smith and Maxwell. The latter had gone on to register his maiden Test ton in the match which ultimately ended as a draw.
“I was shocked. I was a bit hurt by it as well,” Maxwell said about the allegations to SEN Radio.
“To have these allegations about your involvement in a game where you’ve only got happy memories about it, great memories… I still remember the feeling after hugging Steve Smith after getting my maiden Test hundred.
“To have that tarnished by these allegations was pretty devastating and obviously there’s absolutely no truth to it whatsoever. It was 100 per cent unfair, to tarnish one of best moments of my career was pretty brutal.”
Maxwell and Smith were the two batsmen implicated in the story.
Opening up on the subject of match-fixing, Maxwell stated that he had always reported anything suspicious to the anti-corruption officials while playing in T20 leagues around the world, including the IPL, where he led Kings XI Punjab as skipper in the 2009 edition.
“I’ve been very honest with them (anti-corruption officers) the whole way through with the IPL,” he said. “If I’ve ever seen anything untoward I always sat down with them, had a long coffee and just talked about everything to make sure nothing ever, ever comes back to me.
“If there’s anything slightly amiss, I always give them a call and make sure they have every bit of evidence they can possibly have. There’s some things you see in the game of cricket where you’re always just a little bit unsure. All the things you do hear in the game, and when it comes out later on you go, ‘Oh, I swear I could have noticed that while I was watching it’.
“It was probably easier when I was captain and I was able to see the way the game was going, and the instructions that I was giving players, and the way the game was moving, I could actually work it out a little better. There wasn’t really anything untoward in the season I was captain, but you could certainly tell from opposition stuff and that’s why I reported certain things.”
