Leaving Glenn Maxwell out of the Sri Lanka Test tour wasn’t the hardest call for Australia’s selectors.

That unfortunate honour instead went to Peter Handscomb, who trained with the squad during the SCG Test but found himself overtaken by Nathan McSweeney when the 16 berths were finalised by George Bailey a few days later.

Glenn Maxwell during his last Test match, in Bangladesh in 2017.Credit: Getty Images

Nevertheless, Maxwell’s omission felt like the end of any notion that he might play more Test cricket. At 33, Handscomb will still be around the mark when Australia next go to India in a couple of years’ time. At 36, Maxwell almost certainly will not.

That sense of finality came with a parallel sense of loss. For well over a decade now, Maxwell has been one of the most outrageously gifted cricketers in the world. Yet in Test match terms, his sole century against India in Ranchi eight years ago leaves Maxwell on the same rung of the ladder as the likes of Brad Hodge, David Hookes, Martin Love, Kurtis Patterson and ... Jason Gillespie.

Maxwell’s seven Tests spanned four years and four tours, two to India and one each to the UAE and Bangladesh. The last of those, in Chittagong in late 2017, provided Maxwell with the solitary Test match win in which he played.

After a surprise defeat in the first match of that series in Dhaka, this was an underrated victory for a team under huge pressure to succeed, in what Maxwell has recalled as “some of the hottest, most........

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