- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Michael Clarke hijacked the World Cup final yesterday by announcing his retirement from the 50-over game, effective as of tonight.
The Australian skipper has made a habit of creating headlines when he’s not scoring runs in bucket-loads as he used to.
When his last hamstring snap surfaced on the final day of the first Test against India at Adelaide last December, Clarke told a stunned media conference, “There’s a chance I may never play again”.
From that point on there were daily headlines in all forms of the media of how Clarke was coping with his rehab after surgery.
It quickly reached saturation status to the point of boredom. Without any argument, Clarke’s hamstring was the most covered cricketing body part for some time.
But judging by his statements yesterday, today’s World Cup final will be his ODI swansong, just beating the tap on the shoulder from the national selectors.
So far in this tournament Clarke has scored 12, 68, 47, 8, and 10 for 142 runs at 29, well below his career average of 44.42.
As it sits, Clarke is fourth on the all-time Australian ODI run-getters, and seventh on the all-time list of Australian century-makers.
Ricky Ponting heads the runs scored list from a massive 404 games with 13704 at 42.03.
Adam Gilchrist is second on 9619 runs from 2897 games, at an average of 35.19.
Mark Waugh is third on exactly 8500 runs from 244 games, averaging 39.35.
And Clarke will be playing his 245th ODI today, having scored 7907 at 44.42.
Ponting also leads the Australian century-makers with 30, well ahead of Mark Waugh’s 18, Gilchrist’s 16, Matt Hayden’s 10, Geoff Marsh and Shane Watson’s nine, Clarke’s eight, Dean Jones’ seven, with three on six ODI tons – Aaron Finch, Andrew Symonds, and Michael Bevan. David Boon and Damien Martyn share five.
But there will have to be a major form reversal today if Clarke’s going to play a pivotal role in the outcome.
It’s far more likely to be captain-in-waiting and Australia’s best batsman Steve Smith, with David Warner, Finch, Glenn Maxwell, and Shane Watson getting among the runs when it counts.
All four are due.
But today doesn’t boil down the Clarke’s ODI retirement, it centres on four players – Smith and left-arm paceman Mitchell Starc, and the Black Caps skipper Brendon McCullum, with his left-arm paceman Trent Boult.
Clarke will be saying to Starc get rid of the dangerous McCullum early, while McCullum will be saying to Boult to send the equally dangerous Smith packing as soon as possible.
Whatever the result, the two best-performed teams have made it to the decider.
For the Black Caps an historic first, but for the Australians a seventh final in 11 World Cups. They are far and away the most successful with four wins – 1987 with Allan Border as skipper, 1999 with Steve Waugh, with 2003 and 2007 under Ponting’s captaincy.
Will they lift the trophy again? Or will the Black Caps storm through the tournament unbeaten?