Glenn Maxwell has announced his retirement from international cricket at 38, bringing a close to a 14-year career for Australia across white-ball and red-ball cricket. Maxwell confirmed the decision on The Final Word podcast on Tuesday, saying it felt like the right time to step away after not being named in Australia's T20I squad for the upcoming home series against England.
Maxwell retired from ODIs in 2025 to manage his body through to last season's T20 World Cup, and has now extended that call to T20I cricket as well. Across his Australian career he played 149 ODIs, 130 T20Is and seven Tests, and was part of Australia's title-winning squads at the 2015 and 2023 ODI World Cups and the 2021 T20 World Cup — three of the biggest trophies in the sport inside a single international career.
Maxwell's retirement covers Australian international duty only; he has said he intends to keep playing franchise T20 cricket, including for the Melbourne Stars in this season's Big Bash League. Reports also indicate he is stepping away from domestic first-class and one-day cricket for Victoria, narrowing his remaining playing days almost entirely to the shortest format on the franchise circuit.
Maxwell said he had held a small hope of a farewell fixture at the MCG as part of Australia's upcoming T20I series against England, but was left out of the squad before that became possible. He said he took no issue with the selectors' call and framed his decision to retire now as being about managing his body for his remaining playing commitments rather than reacting to being left out.
The announcement lands just as England's white-ball squads for their Australia tour were confirmed, with the T20I leg of that series the exact assignment Maxwell was left out of. Australia are using this series to assess depth ahead of a home summer built around Test cricket against New Zealand and India, and Maxwell's retirement removes one of the most recognisable names from that selection picture for white-ball cricket going forward.
Few Australian cricketers have matched Maxwell's range of match-winning innings across three World Cup-winning campaigns, and his departure leaves a gap in the middle-order power-hitting role he largely defined for Australia's white-ball sides over the past decade. His continued presence in the Big Bash means Australian fans have not seen the last of him on the field, just the last of him in the national shirt.
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Career statistics and quotes in this article are verified against same-day and freshly re-checked reporting as of November 3, 2026.
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