Sidelined Australian star Glenn Maxwell has revealed exactly how he broke his leg a fortnight ago, an injury that will keep him off the pitch for up to three months.
The spinning all-rounder had been hoping to break back into the Aussie Test squad for the tour to India in February, but has now all but given up hope of that happening thanks to the injury.
Maxwell was at a friend’s 50th birthday in Melbourne when the bizarre incident unfolded.
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“I almost pretended to chase (my friend) off somewhere, and outside it was just raining a little bit, and they didn’t really have a grass backyard – they had synthetic grass – so it was only a small, little area just around the corner,” Maxwell said in a video to media outlets.
“I reckon we both took about three or four steps out there, and both slipped at the same time. I got my foot stuck a little bit and he fell unfortunately at a really bad angle and landed straight on my leg, and it just snapped.
“I heard and felt every part of it, and it was pretty painful. I was screaming a bit and he was like ‘please tell me you’re joking, please tell me you’re joking’ and then I just hit this ultimate calmness of, like, shock, ‘I’ve just broken my leg, I’m pretty sure both the bones are broken, I don’t think I should move, can you please get my wife’.
“I shattered my fibula, that one was the first snap I heard, it was snapped in half but also shattered through the bone. I think there was a bit of a chip off the tibia as well, but I ruptured all the ligaments on top of my foot in between them both.”
Maxwell’s friends erected a gazebo to shield him from the rain while he lay on the ground waiting for an ambulance.
Eventually he received permission from doctors to be driven to the hospital by his wife instead, and his friends put him into a car.
He lay in a hospital bed for about 24 hours before being operated on.
“I probably didn’t sleep for two days while I was in agony, so it was a pretty horrible couple of days,” he said.
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