Clarke recovers to play one of his finest Test innings

 

Columnist

By Spiro Zavos, 20 Mar 2010 Spiro Zavos is a Roar Expert

Tagged:

 Australian Cricket, Cricket, Michael Clarke, New Zealand cricket, Simon Katich, Test cricket

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Australia's Marcus North, left and Michael Clarke celebrate at the end of play against New Zealand. AAP Image/NZPA, Ross Setford

Some time during the very slow period of play during the Test at Wellington, when Simon Katich and Michael Clarke seemed becalmed, I heard one of the good old boys at the Basin Reserve say to a weather-beaten mate: “They’re batting as if they’re Kiwi batsmen.”

It was very slow batting. There was a succession of maiden overs.

Clarke took something like 16 balls to get off the mark. The pop-gun New Zealand attack looked like models of consistent line and length.

But just before and after the afternoon tea break, Clarke came out and started to hammer the attack. Daniel Vittori was smashed for a couple of sixes, and the other bowlers were belted all around the field.

This was batting, especially from Clarke, of the highest order. Here was a player who had come into the Test with his private life exposed in the cruelest way for a young man trying – and failing, this time – to establish a life-time relationship.

Cricket is a hard enough game psychologically on the field, especially for batsmen who endure a one-strike and you’re out syndrome, without a player having to endure off field psychologically draining melodramas in their private life.

Some Australian dignitaries I was with at the ground left the dining room when Clarke came into bat to see what sort of reception he’d get from the crowd. It seemed to us that the crowd seemed to be good-humouredly on his side, even though he was playing for the enemy.

There is a lovely, casual elegance about Clarke’s play, a rapier-like quality in style, as opposed to, say, Ricky Ponting’s broadsword bludgeoning play. And this elegance tends to mask the fact that Clarke, like Mark Waugh, is a tough-minded batsmen who just happens to look somewhat carefree in his approach.

Clarke, with the help of the sturdy, full-faced batting of Marcus North, has put Australia in a winning position at the end of the first day by playing a terrific innings, one of his best in Test cricket.

Like all great Test innings, it was a triumph of style and character under difficult circumstances.

Having watched Clarke win his battle against the New Zealand bowlers, and any inner demons working at his mind, I find myself agreeing with a post on The Roar yesterday by Dave Sygall that Clarke has consolidated his position as Ricky Ponting’s natural successor as captain of the Australian Test side.

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