Glenn Maxwell retires from international cricket at 38, ending a 130-match T20I career

Glenn Maxwell has retired from international cricket, ESPNcricinfo reported on Monday 2 November 2026. The 38-year-old Australian is also giving up first-class and List A cricket, but will keep playing T20 leagues: his Melbourne Stars contract in the Big Bash League runs to the 2027-28 season.

Maxwell had already quit ODIs in June 2025 and kept going only in T20Is, with the 2026 T20 World Cup as his target. Australia went out in the group stage of that tournament, and their last match, against Oman in February, is now his last game for his country. He took two wickets and did not bat.

Glenn Maxwell's international record

His five T20I hundreds are a world record he shares with India's Rohit Sharma. He won two ODI World Cups with Australia and hit the winning runs when Australia became T20 world champions in Dubai in 2021.

Why now

Maxwell said on the Final Word podcast that he and Australia's selectors had talked "before and after the T20 World Cup" and agreed to leave the door open, but the team is now looking at younger players ahead of the 2028 Olympics, where cricket returns. "There's going to be a lot of change ... over the next 12 to 24 months with the Olympics coming up," he said, adding that he had hoped for "a send-off game at the MCG".

England's white-ball tour of Australia includes a T20I in Melbourne, and Maxwell said he had thought about getting ready for it. Instead he chose an injection in his knee and eight weeks of rehabilitation so he is fit for the BBL. He told his Victoria team-mates after his last One-Day Cup game that he was done with state cricket, and said that conversation was harder than he expected.

Australia had already named new white-ball squads without their senior fast bowlers for the England series; see our report on Australia resting Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood.

What it means for Pakistan fans

Pakistan bowlers met Maxwell often in T20Is, and fans here will see him again in the BBL, where Pakistani players are a regular part of the league. Haris Rauf, his former Melbourne Stars team-mate, has moved to the Adelaide Strikers for all of BBL 16, as we reported on Sunday. Maxwell also remains available for franchise leagues; in September he led Belfast Wolves to the final of the first European T20 Premier League.

Our cricket desk carries the BBL and Australia's home summer as it happens.