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Clarke refuses offer of post-match beers from Alastair Cook

14th July, 2015
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Michael Clarke and Alastair Cook helm two sides on the verge of history. Are you watching? (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
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14th July, 2015
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He was once told to get ready for a broken arm by Michael Clarke but it seems James Anderson still wants to have a beer with the bloke.

Speaking at the launch of a documentary about Maasai Warriors playing cricket, Anderson let out some gossip that Alastair Cook’s offer of a post-match beer between the two teams was refused by Michael Clarke.

“It’s Cooky’s idea. He went and asked them. We were all happy to do it. I don’t know why they didn’t come in,” Anderson said.

“That’s their prerogative. In the New Zealand series, we had a beer after each game with them. We found that was quite an enjoyable thing, just to chew the fat after a hard Test. It didn’t matter whether we won or lost.”

As good as the cricket was between England and New Zealand, it wasn’t the Ashes. Yes, there’s a tradition of a sharing a beer after a cricket match but that’s just what it is, a tradition. The last such Ashes occurrence appears to have been 10 years ago. Ricky Ponting admitted having a chat over an ale created a friendly atmosphere between the two teams, but he also added that it may have cost Australia its competitive edge.

2005 was also before social media became a real force. Those same people today on Facebook walls and hiding behind twitter hashtags wondering why Clarke was so uptight as to not have a beer with Cooky would have been the same people admonishing the captain for not taking the Ashes series seriously and taking too much joy out of a loss if he and the players did venture in for a Foster’s.

Besides, Michael Clarke doesn’t do tradition as we’ve witnessed in the past, including his 2009 spat with Simon Katich when he allegedly wanted the team song to be sung early so he could leave to be with his family.

In short, Clarke was right to deny the offer of a beer until the series is over.

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Those harping on about the 1981 days forget about how far professional sport has come. Those guys weren’t getting paid huge sums of money. Sure they wanted to win just as much as the current players but they also had the right to do it on their own terms. If they wanted to drink cans of beer on the flight over, so be it. If they wanted to light up a few cigars after a net session to ease the nerves then go for it.

Rod Marsh and Dennis Lillee even famously had a joke bet against Australia at odds of 500 to 1, which England ended up winning after Ian Botham’s famous century. You can imagine how that would go down in this day and age no matter how small the sum wagered was.

To be fair to Clarke I also can’t imagine his answer to Cook’s request being any different if Australia won the First Test in Cardiff. It may seem like a ruthless attitude but he’s not there to win friends, he’s there to retain a tiny urn (even though he can’t take it home).

A beer between mates is always fun but with enemies it can be awkward. What do you talk about? “Hey Alastair, how funny was it when you got hit in the balls?” To be honest the only reason to be disappointed two professional cricket teams didn’t have a beer together is because we won’t get to hear about what happened between David Warner and Joe Root two years after their fight at a bar. It would certainly help sell the next retired cricketer’s Ashes diary.

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