Glenn Maxwell has retired from international cricket, closing a 14-year career with Australia that began with his debut in August 2012. The Glenn Maxwell retirement was confirmed on Monday, 2 November 2026, when the 38-year-old all-rounder said on the Final Word podcast that his time in the national team was over. He had already quit one-day internationals in June 2025, and the Glenn Maxwell retirement ends his involvement with the Twenty20 side as well.
Maxwell was not named in Australia’s Twenty20 squad to face England later in November, and he said he had held talks with team management before and after the 2026 Twenty20 World Cup. He said there was no pressure from that side, and both parties had left the door open while Australia looked at younger players. Australia’s final match of that tournament, against Oman in February 2026, is now his last game for his country. He took two wickets in that match and did not bat as Australia won by nine wickets.
Glenn Maxwell retirement follows World Cup talks
Maxwell played 130 Twenty20 internationals for Australia, scoring 2,897 runs at a strike rate of 154.42 and taking 51 wickets. He scored five centuries in the format, a world record he holds jointly with Rohit Sharma. In one-day internationals he played 149 matches and scored 3,990 runs at a strike rate of 126.7. The Glenn Maxwell retirement closes a career in which he scored 7,226 runs and took 136 wickets across all formats, with 10 centuries.
His Test career was far shorter. Maxwell was capped seven times in Test cricket, scoring 339 runs, and his last Test came in 2017. His best score in the format was 104 against India in Ranchi. He had kept himself available for Twenty20 internationals after quitting the one-day game, and he played at the 2026 short-format World Cup in India and Sri Lanka, where Australia did not get past the group stage.
Two World Cup wins and a famous double hundred
Maxwell won the ODI World Cup with Australia in 2015 and again in 2023, and he scored the winning runs when Australia were crowned Twenty20 world champions in 2021. His most famous one-day innings came in the 2023 World Cup, when his double hundred carried Australia through a remarkable chase against Afghanistan. The innings is still cited by the International Cricket Council as a measure of his batting power and nerve under pressure.
Signs of a reduced role had appeared earlier in 2026, when Cricket Australia left him off its national central contract list for the 2026-27 season, a decision announced in April. The Glenn Maxwell retirement announcement followed months of talks about whether he would stay on for the home summer, and it was no surprise to those who had watched his role shrink during 2026.
Glenn Maxwell retirement leaves franchise cricket open
The Glenn Maxwell retirement does not end his playing career. He remains available for the Melbourne Stars in the Big Bash League, and his contract there has been extended to the 2027-28 season. He has stayed active on the franchise circuit, leading Belfast Wolves to the final of the first European T20 Premier League in September. Five days later he played two matches for Victoria in the One-Day Cup.
The Glenn Maxwell retirement was harder to explain to his Victoria team-mates than he expected. He said he got a little choked up speaking in front of the group, and he thanked them for the support they had given him every time he returned to state cricket. He said he now wants to spend more time on his body so he can get through the tournaments he has left in his career.
He had held a small hope of a farewell game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, his home ground, against England on 21 November. The Glenn Maxwell retirement showed he understood the direction Australia were taking with the squad, with change expected over the next 12 to 24 months and the 2028 Olympics on the horizon. He said the selectors needed to give younger players time under international pressure that a Big Bash fixture cannot always provide.
England are about to visit for a white-ball series that includes a Twenty20 international in Melbourne, and Maxwell had been tempted to get himself ready for it. Instead he said he was ready to have an injection in his knee and then complete eight weeks of solid rehabilitation to be strong for the Big Bash. The Glenn Maxwell retirement closes an international career that ran from his debut in 2012 to that final match against Oman in February 2026.