Maxwell needs a mentor – Dean Jones

Former Australia batsman Dean Jones believes that Glenn Maxwell needs to find a mentor he can trust in order to make better decisions about what he says and also how he bats.

Left out of the Australia ODI team that defeated New Zealand in the first ODI in Sydney on Sunday, Maxwell has been fined and publicly criticised by the coach Darren Lehmann and captain Steven Smith for his frank words about batting behind Victoria captain Matthew Wade in the Bushrangers’ Sheffield Shield line-up.

Jones, no stranger to differences with officialdom, including his Australia coach Bob Simpson, stated that Maxwell’s struggles suggested a lack of good advice around him. He paralleled Maxwell with his earlier days when Jones’ father Barney – a stalwart of the Carlton Cricket Club – and Keith Stackpole, the former Australia opening batsman, served as confidantes.

“I think he really needs a mentor,” he said while launching Dean Jones’ Cricket Tips at the MCG. “I don’t want my sportsmen to come out of cookie moulds. I want them to have a personality and be able to say what they want, but I don’t think that was the right forum for him to do it. He’s got enough charisma in the way he plays. At the top of his game, he’s in our team, first pick, and I think he’s going to India.

“But the fact remains that I think he needs a mentor, whether that be Chris Rogers, or Michael Hussey or Mark Taylor or someone like that, who he could speak to and vent. I often did with Stacky or my dad, get it off your chest and then say ‘okay, this is what we need to do’.

“I don’t think you can be successful in …

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