As Maxwell puts it in the book: “When JL saw me, he was not pleased. He brought up the wedding, putting it to me directly that I had engineered missing the tour, and adding that my first games back for Australia should have been the priority.

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“I blew up. ‘Are you saying I’ve faked an injury?’ I said, probably with several expletives in there for decoration. He replied that I had been fine for the BBL final, I was going to be fine in time for the IPL, yet was suddenly unfit for this tour.

“I reminded him, forcefully again, that it was CA’s medical staff who had recommended this immediate operation, and that I couldn’t bat properly at the end of the Big Bash because of the problem that hadn’t then been diagnosed. He seemed to think I could tough it out and be fine to play, despite the scan and the doctor’s advice.

“It was only a couple of months since JL had been brilliant when realising that I was in strife, and had given the support I needed. But this latest episode was another example of where, for whatever reason, there was some sort of block for him when it came to me. I never could explain it.”

Langer was contacted for comment.

As for the episode later described as “careless whispers” by Langer, Maxwell wrote that he had been left feeling “empty” by a sequence of events that built up expectations of a return to the Test team following the Newlands scandal.

“I was so fresh and so excited that I had already packed my kit at home with all the bits and pieces I would need for Test cricket, including, of course, my baggy green,” he wrote. “A bit keen, but confident about what was coming. And then it didn’t. The Test squad came out, the email landed, I scrolled down my phone, and my name was nowhere.

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“It was such a cruel blow and underpinned with such dishonesty. Of course selectors have the prerogative to go different ways – things change. In this case, though, I’d been denied the chance to bolster my case in England, denied the A tour because I was deemed too senior, and after all that got the kick in the teeth. It was handled abysmally by all involved. The year that promised so much instead left me empty.”

Maxwell has seldom taken time to reflect on his journey, and regards the process of writing the book as an empowering one.

“There was so much internal anxiety that I was almost beating myself up before I got there,” he said. “I hope a lot of that stuff is relatable to people. To have your biggest vulnerabilities put out there and exposed to the world, and explain how I saw things, is a bit empowering.”

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