Maxwell recalls painful injury while eyeing off India Tests
Maxwell was at a friend's house in Melbourne celebrating the birthday of a cricket official when he slipped on some synthetic grass and was left writhing in pain in the rain before being rushed to hospital.
Speaking on cricket.com.au's Unplayable Podcast, Maxwell recalled the painful incident and just how he came to break his left fibula.
"One of my mates, who was also one of my school teachers, we were laughing about something and I pretended to chase him off somewhere," Maxwell said.
"I reckon we both took about three or four steps out there, and both slipped at the same time. I just got my foot stuck a little bit, and he fell, unfortunately at a really bad angle and landed straight on my leg.
"It just snapped. I heard and felt every part of it. 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'."
The veteran said the pain he felt at the time was unbearable and only now is he starting to slowly recover following successful surgery on his affected area.
"I probably didn't sleep for two days while I was in agony," Maxwell added.
"It was it was a pretty horrible couple of days. My wife was unbelievable through it all.
"I shattered my fibula. So that one I think was the first snap I heard. It was snapped in half, but it also shattered through the bone.
"There was a bit of a chip off the tibia as well (and) I ruptured all the ligaments on top of my foot as well … the syndesmosis ligaments, they're all ruptured. I did a good job of it for such an innocuous thing.
"This is the frustrating thing about it all – I've done some dumb things on the field, some dumb things off the field, and I've never even come close to injuring myself (like this).
"To do something so innocuously, it's just frustrating. It was just a nothing incident. The amount of times that I've jumped into a pool and gone, 'that was probably a bit more shallow than I thought', and not had even a scratch, not even a bruise or anything, not even a rolled ankle.
"It was just a little bit slippery, and all of a sudden there goes a couple of months."
Despite the setback, Maxwell has not given up hope in returning in time to feature in the battle for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy on Australia’s tour of India next year.
Maxwell hasn't played a Test for Australia since 2017, but strong form on the sub-continent with the white-ball and in the Indian Premier League means the 34-year-old could be in contention for recall.
While Maxwell is yet to put a timeline on his recovery, he is hoping he can return to action in time to make the trip.
"There's a time limit on when they're going to announce that squad to India and to be fair, there's a high chance that I won't make it," he said.
"They're obviously going have to see me playing cricket and they're obviously going to have to take a big risk if they do take me.
"But I think that's probably why I don't want to sort of set any dates or timelines of when I can get back. I would dearly love to be okay for that but I'm a slave to how my body recovers and how quickly I can I suppose get the strength back into it and then get back playing cricket again."