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Michael Clarke is happy to continue playing cricket as Australian captain Ricky Ponting’s deputy. Ponting fuelled debate over his long-term future as skipper upon returning to Australia after his team’s Ashes defeat by suggesting he would be prepared to play on even if he was stripped of the leadership.
Clarke will captain the side in Friday’s one-day match against Scotland in Edinburgh, plus two Twenty20 matches and three one-dayers against England while Ponting takes a break.
Ponting is expected to return to England for the last four matches of the series.
“At the end of the day, he’s our leader and has been for my whole career,” Clarke said.
“I’m blessed that I get this opportunity when he’s not here to do that fill-in role, but Punter’s our leader and I’m more than happy to keep playing under him.”
Ponting, Australia’s all-time leading Test runscorer, has said he is open to the idea of Australia having two captains, with Clarke leading the one-day and Twenty20 teams.
Ponting has experience of the two-captain scenario himself, having led Australia to World Cup glory in South Africa in 2003 when Steve Waugh was still Test skipper.
Asked if he would fall on his sword if he felt Clarke was a better Test captaincy candidate, Ponting said he would.
But Clarke did not believe any of those scenarios were on the cards at the moment.
“To me, we don’t have to worry about that because Ricky’s our captain,” Clarke said.
“I’m lucky with the relationship I’ve got with Punt. No doubt he’s our leader, but when he needs to have time off or misses a game, as vice-captain I get this chance.
“‘I’ve spent a lot of time with Rick over the last couple of years of being vice-captain. I’ve tried to get as close to him as possible and I’m blessed that I get this opportunity to captain for the two Twenty20s and three one-dayers.
“My goal is to try and get five wins, so when the skipper comes back we’re in good form for him.”
While heartened by support from Cricket Australia following his team’s 2-1 Ashes series defeat in England last weekend, Ponting admitted the buck stops with him and, after surrendering the urn in 2005 and 2009, he has to be prepared for criticism.
But Clarke said it should be the entire team copping the flak.
“The criticism of us as a team is probably fair enough, we didn’t get the result we wanted,” Clarke said.
“It’s the whole team out there on the field and there was times we all didn’t perform individually and as a team as well as we’d like, so I think the criticism needs to go to the team.
“I know it’s not one person’s fault. Ricky’s been a fantastic leader throughout my whole career. He was inspirational at times during this Ashes series and he wanted to win as much as anybody.
“Personally his performances were outstanding, so I think criticism is fair, but it needs to be towards the whole team, certainly not one person.”
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