- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
What a cricket season Michael Clarke has endured, personally and professionally. He has been dragged to the depths of hell and back.
Rocked to the core, as was the nation, by the death of Phil Hughes. Valiant and inspirational in his leadership over the following days and weeks. A gutsy and defiant first Test century off the back of the tragedy. Constantly at odds with the leadership at Cricket Australia.
He has also lurched from one injury crisis to another as his battle-weary body continues to fail him.
And now, character assassination from seemingly within his own ranks, leaked for publication in Fairfax media.
This, for a man who stood front and centre to carry the burden of a grieving country. His thanks? Knife wounds in his back, and the sound of his own dripping blood as it hits the floor behind him.
The chances of Michael Clarke resigning as Australian Test captain and forging a path as a player only are as remote as Ange Postecoglou being sacked as Socceroos coach this week.
On the face of it, there’s a reasonable case to be made. Great sporting teams thrive on continuity, particularly at the leadership level. It would serve the team better to have a captain that isn’t forever under an injury cloud, possibly in and out of the side, or even worse, breaking down mid-match and costing the team dearly.
The strains and pressures of being a fully fit, top-class batsman are burden enough, but still far less than trying to be one while dealing with the endless distractions and commitments that accompany Australian sports highest office (although Socceroos supporters may have something to say about that status).
While it’s possible that such ideas may have entered Clarke’s head during his single-minded attempt to recover from injury and play an active role in the upcoming World Cup, the only way he would have actioned these thoughts was if they had only come from himself.
Any hint of outside persuasion, such as the disrespectful campaign launched by factions within Cricket Australia via Fairfax media, will only cause Clarke to dig his heels in. And just like when he’s at the crease, once those heels are in, they’re difficult to remove.
But, will the powers-that-be within Cricket Australia take the brave decision to move him on, if indeed his relationships with both officials and teammates have soured? And can he play on as a batsmen only under those circumstances? Would anyone want him to?
The question of who the public would side with in a Clarke versus Cricket Australia public relations battle is a sticky wicket.
Rarely does the everyday fan side with a corporate body that runs a sport. More often they are the target of ridicule, vitriol and accusations of incompetence.
Like we see daily during their respective seasons of the AFL, NRL and ARU, Cricket Australia has been on the receiving end of its share of such disdain. In fact, The Roar is a hub for these kinds of viewpoints.
But the Australian public has never quite warmed to Michael Clarke, for a catalogue of reasons both real and imagined.
His greatest moment was when threating Jimmy Anderson with a now-famous “broken f***ing arm”, which gave us an immediate and visceral insight to the competitive animal that Clark actually is, and the fire that burns within.
He’s harnessing these same traits now to push his barrow through the media, with no retreat in sight, and certainly no surrender. Talk of him playing onto the 2019 World Cup is ludicrous, but speaks to his defiant mindset, and the elevated position within Australian cricket that he sees as his entitlement.
But above all else, Australians love winning, and Clarke has delivered it often enough, the current Test side holding the Ashes after a 5-0 whitewash, along with the Border-Gavaskar trophy thanks in part to Clarke’s heroics in Adelaide, and let’s not forget the thrilling and memorable series victory in South Africa less than twelve months ago.
Gideon Haigh, on yesterday’s Offsiders, drew comparisons with Kevin Pietersen and England. It would be shameful if the situation was allowed to degenerate into such farce. As it stands, it is already unedifying and undignified.
All involved must be better than they are currently proving to be.
The World Cup is imminent. The Ashes won’t be far behind. In between is a series in the West Indies that will be as off-Broadway as Australian Test cricket gets.
Important cricket is on the way. Important decisions will be made. And it’s important that Cricket Australia and Michael Clarke come together and resolve their differences. There is simply too much at stake.