Veteran Australia all-rounder Glen Maxwell has joined Major League Cricket (MLC) franchise Washington Freedom, after taking an indefinite break from the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) citing his dip in form as a major reason.

Maxwell will join Australian teammates Travis Head, Steve Smith, and former IPL coach Ricky Ponting. He told ESPN”s Around the Wicket that he is excited to work in unison with familiar faces in the league.

“It”s a tournament that I watched from afar last year and was extremely excited about hopefully playing this tournament one day and luckily enough the timings have aligned this year,” Maxwell said. “I”ve been speaking to Ricky Ponting and a few other players a fair bit over the last little period and certainly extremely excited to get stuck in.

“Having Travis and Steve there and Ricky, three guys who I”m extremely familiar with, I think that sort of probably tipped me over the edge. You sort of um and ah about that time of the year about where you”re going to be and whether you take the time off, whether you play the Hundred or what you might do and I think just having those couple of Aussies there and I think the opportunity to be a part of something really big in MLC and grow something is really exciting as well.”

He joins the list of Australian players like, Head, Smith, Adam Zampa (Los Angeles Knight Riders), Spencer Johnson (Knight Riders), Tim David (MI New York), Matt Short (San Franciso Unicorns) and Jake Fraser-McGurk (San Franciso Unicorns), who have already been confirmed signings for the second season of MLC.

Earlier, Maxwell had asked to be omitted from RCB for the match against SunRisers Hyderabad. The Australian had clarified that he was pretty low on confidence ahead of the match and wanted to take the break.