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In Australian cricket we like to tell ourselves that team selection is a process untainted by sentiment. Michael Clarke’s selection for the World Cup – as captain, no less – could not be more contrary.
Wicketkeeper Ian Healy being denied a farewell Test in Brisbane is the commonly tendered proof of this attitude, while the Hobart miracle two games later by replacement Adam Gilchrist is its prompt vindication. It affirms our self-perception as a hard-edged culture.
Yet ever since Clarke wrenched his back and destroyed another hamstring after pushing himself to play in the summer’s first Test in Adelaide, regular updates have centred on whether he’ll be able to play in the World Cup. Few have looked at whether he should.
To paraphrase Dame Edna, I’m not casting nasturtiums at Clarke. I admire his public bravery following Phillip Hughes’ death, and his comments after the memorial Test that his injuries left him with no regrets about playing. It meant a lot to see him take the field.
Clarke’s stubbornness has largely been an asset: career-long back problems had until this summer cost him only one Test. But selectors must nullify stubbornness when required, and playing in this World Cup is neither to his benefit nor Australia’s.
To start with, Clarke remains essential for Tests. David Warner and Steve Smith have emerged with trumpets blaring but the ranks behind are thin. We need our most accomplished batsman for as long as possible. Team medical staff believe that travel is an injury risk, to the point that Clarke flies ahead of teammates for extra recovery time.
In the World Cup, Clarke must prove his fitness by Australia’s second game. This means flying to Brisbane to play Bangladesh, then having six days before facing New Zealand in Auckland. There are three days to travel to Perth to play Afghanistan, three until the Sri Lanka game in Sydney and five until Scotland in Hobart. Should Australia progress there’ll be five days until a quarter final in Adelaide, three or five days until a semi-final in Auckland or Sydney, then either two or four days until the final back in Melbourne.
Who’s confident?
Where Clarke could be rehabilitating fully before his Test assignment in the West Indies in June, he’s rushing back to the frenetic short-form game that has shot him down twice in recent months.
After suggesting in Adelaide that his cricketing career might be over, it’s a reckless approach to his future. And that’s before you consider his effect on the ODI team.
George Bailey has been dished up a sashimi-raw deal as Australian captain. He first filled in for Clarke in his 14th game. In two years since, Clarke has played 17 of Australia’s 42 matches. Since the 2013 series win in England he’s played 6 games out of 24 and limped off injured in two of them.
Bailey has now captained more games than he’s played under Clarke, yet has never had the chance to make the team his own. He can’t fully exhort his players to follow him because he’s only keeping the seat warm.
Never mind that he’s the the seat’s chief occupier – his role is faithful Denethor, decades spent on a humble chair in the shadow of Gondor’s throne.
This World Cup is the worst case yet. Clarke plays the absent king Aragorn, given until a week into the tournament / battle for Middle Earth to return and prepare to fight New Zealanders in weird costumes.
Bailey will lead the preparations and Australia’s opening game without knowing whether he’s captain for the duration. Or Clarke may take over, get injured again and put Bailey back in the job. It’s ludicrous, and could not be better calculated to unsettle the squad.
Then we come to the third part of the equation: that Clarke the batsman is not required. The truth of the matter is that Clarke is no longer a 50-over player. His last full ODI series was against Pakistan in 2012. He’s played two games for New South Wales since November 2006 – remember the Ford Ranger Cup?
He’s sat out ODIs because they weren’t deemed important, and the team has gone fine without him.
Clarke will return so cold he should run the drinks to save on ice. No cricket since December, straight into a World Cup in a format he barely plays. There’s a hubris there that deserves to bite Australia in the arse.
More importantly, who does Clarke replace? The preferred balance will have James Faulkner as one of four frontline bowlers, Brad Haddin at seven, Shane Watson at three and another all-rounder at six.
David Warner and Aaron Finch will open, leaving two middle order spots. The only way Bailey, Smith and Clarke can co-exist is if Watson bowls a full allotment, or is dropped for a specialist with Faulkner batting at seven.
Of course Clarke is quality – the kind of long-innings player a team can build around. But Bailey and Smith already offer that, while adding the ability to accelerate in a way that Clarke cannot.
Smith’s improvisation and seamless shifts in gear have been a feature of the summer, while few can crush a cricket ball like George Bailey, with the casual smiling violence that sends it glowing into the black sky over long on.
Clarke can hit the odd six, but he needs the right ball to suit his stroke. In the short form you need to make the right ball.
Bailey has almost as many sixes in 52 ODIs as Clarke in 238. In a clutch situation Clarke is more likely to get himself out forcing an unnatural shot. Bailey or Smith are more likely to shake down an attack for a 20-run over.
Selectors were right to leave Smith from captaincy calculations: there are tricks to the 50-over game that need stricter observance than the freeform expression of Test skippering.
But given Smith’s form, a determination to play Clarke could see Bailey captain the first game of a World Cup and be dropped for the next. If he has a dominant tri-series in the lead-up, the tangle selectors have made for themselves will only tighten.
In Clarke, you have a non-boundary-smoker who’s wary of dashing quick singles. You have a cover-point prowler who can’t swoop on a ball without shredding a hamstring. You have an infielder who can’t dive without a back strain. And then after a game in which he has to do all of these things, you put him on the first available plane to another city to do them all again.
The preoccupation with his recovery, then, has been strange. At least if Clarke wasn’t captain he could miss games with less disruption. But as a player he’s not in the best XI. Will his inclusion, driven by emotion and his own stubbornness, force out players more suited to the job?
Emotion begets loyalty, and those are the drivers, following on from Adelaide, his injury and his stated target for his return. Australia’s cricket establishment, from the corporate monolith to the television callers to the selectors, are well in love with Michael Clarke.
Through months of Alastair Cook struggling like a poisoned roach, we scoffed at England’s tendency to select captains because they can’t bear not selecting them. No sooner did they boot theirs than we opted for the same indulgence.
Perhaps Clarke will make a million runs and all the fields will flourish. But from this vantage point his half-selection looks more likely to complicate a clean tilt at the Cup. Objective decisions bow to probability ahead of hope. Mark the spot: here falters the Australian tenet of unsentimentality, while the flint-eyed acuity that accompanies it is lost as well.
This article was first published on Wisden India.