Does anyone care about Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke? I mean, of course we do care about them: they both seem like nice young men and I wish them well in all their endeavours.
It pains me to think of them suffering anguish or pain.
Individually, I care for them as much as a man can reasonably care for another man who he admires and envies and voraciously follows the career of while still being, essentially, a complete stranger.
So let me rephrase that: does anyone care about Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke’s weird little proxy, via-media pseudo-feud?
Is it even a feud? I know the papers keep calling it one, but I’m not sure actual feud-dom has yet broken out.
So far Ricky has written a book, Michael has noted that Ricky has his number, and they are proceeding with their lives. Is that really a feud?
I concede they do not seem to be on the best of terms – a relationship is never at its most intimate when it is conducted via curt quotations in the Daily Telegraph – but this slight frosting of the fronds of the friendship fern seems unlikely to develop into duelling pistols any time in the foreseeable future.
It’s at best a ‘spat’. An irritating and distracting spat that doesn’t really seem to have much to it.
Probably back when Michael Clarke was engaged to Lara Bingle he didn’t always have his mind a hundred percent on the team – though in his defence, have you seen Lara Bingle?
And probably at that time, Ricky Ponting, as captain, could have had a word to him on the issue and asked him to pitch in a little more about the place.
And perhaps if Ponting thinks Clarke cleaned up his act post-Bingle, he could’ve been a bit more effusive in his praise of the turnaround.
And perhaps Clarke could’ve been a bit more accepting of the praise Ponting did include.
And perhaps after this whole thing blew up, Ponting could’ve picked up the damn phone and explained himself and smoothed things over.
And perhaps Clarke could’ve picked up his damn phone and…
Look, what I’m saying is there is a good chance that everyone did something wrong, and nobody is really that bad, and all of this could have been fairly easily avoided, although that might have been bad for the book sales.
But what bugs me is this: who cares? Breaking news: young millionaire with hot fiancee finds it difficult to keep mind on job several years ago.
Read the reports and you’d believe this is striking like a poison dagger at the very heart of the future of Australian cricket, rather than simply causing the Australian captain to throw a few darts at his old Ricky Ponting wall poster.
Will it derail the Ashes campaign? God I hope not. Would we even notice if it did? If the summer goes to hell, there will be plenty of suspects to finger before we start sniffing around the Clarke-Ponting contretemps.
I’m sure the rise of Twenty20, the declining standard of the Sheffield Shield and the fact much of the Australian team prepared for the series with a merry romp across a soggy subcontinent full of autobahn pitches might get a run, just ahead of any or all of: fast bowlers’ stress fractures; spinners who can’t hit a length; Shane Watson’s leaden front foot; Phil Hughes’s wacky contortionist act; David Warner’s mindless swipes; Usman Khawaja’s work ethic; Chris Rogers’ advanced age; James Sutherland’s incompetent administration; and the fact Mike Hussey was pushed.
After we eliminate all of them, then we can look towards Ricky and Michael’s slapbands-at-ten-paces schoolyard marble-fight for explanation of the Ashes flogging that hasn’t actually happened yet.
But for now, let’s try to resist the awful temptation that comes upon us at those times of the year when the football’s finished and the cricket’s only just warming up and there’s such a lack of meaningful action that we have to pretend horse racing is a sport – the temptation to care about things that don’t freaking matter.
Because really, it doesn’t: let Ricky and Michael sort this out in whatever way they see fit but, as Mark Taylor said, it should have been left in the dressing room – not because it’s inappropriate, but because it’s so bloody boring, especially compared to the beauty, drama, poetry and tragicomedy of the game itself.
Compared to the wonders of cricket, the dreariness of the dressing room is a mosquito blocking our view of a dinosaur.
Let’s swat it and move on.
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