Glenn Maxwell out of South Africa tour in brutal new injury development

Aussie allrounder Glenn Maxwell has been ruled out of the South African white-ball tour after re-injuring his left ankle at training. Maxwell was set to make his comeback into the Australian cricket fold during the tour of South Africa starting this month.

Returning from a broken leg late last year, Maxwell put himself in the frame to star for Australia in the middle order for this year's World Cup. However, in a brutal development, Maxwell has withdrawn from the T20 series and flown home early after hurting the same left leg.

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Maxwell was set to miss the One Day International leg of the tour anyway as he was due to fly home for the birth of his first child. In his absence, Matthew Wade has been flown over to South Africa for the T20 series starting on August 30.

Wade was recently dropped from the international team, but his recall may still see him feature for his country yet again. Maxwell joins Steve Smith, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Cameron Green and David Warner on the sidelines for the T20 tour.

Maxwell could have used the tour as a huge boost for his World Cup prospects. Instead, selector Tony Dodemaide said they would monitor the progress of the allrounder.

"We will monitor Glenn's recovery with a view to him being available for the three-match ODI series in India in advance of the World Cup," he said. The setback for Maxwell comes as a huge blow having recently spoken about his chances of holding onto his middle order position for some years to come.

"I'll keep playing as long as people will have me, until they think that someone is more deserving of my spot, which is fine," he said at the launch of Kayo's World Cup coverage. "Until then, I'll keep plugging along. I still feel fit, I still feel young, especially with the role I play. I still try to hit it to hotspots on the field, I'm not hiding at all." Fans reacted with disbelief to Maxwell's unfortunate injury.

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Selector George Bailey recently admitted that Wade may have been too harsh on himself when he recently claimed he probably wouldn't get another chance to play for his nation again. "He's available. I think he might have thrown that one out a little bit early," Bailey said earlier in August. "He's one we do fully expect to come back into that T20 squad for the India series post the ODI World Cup."

Wade will come into contention for the wicketkeeper position again, despite Josh Inglis appearing to be second-choice in all three formats of the game. Maxwell had only recently talked about coming back stronger from his injury, which saw him break his fibula in an accident at a birthday part last year.

"When you have those young guys that come in, they might have success with their first game but a couple of games of failure, it's really hard to come back from. Sometimes you just get used to failure as an older person and you can sort of have the resilience to come back from it."

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