Is Michael Clarke already back under pressure?

The Australian cricket captaincy: honestly, who would want it? It made Allan Border grumpy, it made Mark Taylor tubby, it damn-near broke Kim Hughes. It wore down Steve Waugh.

It heart-breakingly aged Ricky Ponting, my boyhood cricketing hero, despite him being a mere six years my senior.

The Australian cricket captaincy is the highest office in Australia. Some people say it in jest, I say it with every ounce of seriousness I can muster.

A quick Google search determined it is also the highest-paid sporting position in Australia, and rightly so.

A friend of mine once pointedly reminded me I had never played cricket, so what did my opinion matter.

Granted, I have never spent a weekend baking in the Australian heat playing district cricket, but my Bradmanesque backyard cricket record speaks for itself.

And I do not believe I have had to pull on the creams for the district three Maitland Cricket Club (the other MCC) to know the Australian cricket captain carries his fair share of responsibility, and it is an innately hard position to manage.

With the honour of the position comes pressure to perform, pressure to deliver, pressure to succeed.

So what impact is the captaincy having on Michael Clarke?

Certainly, his individual statistics suggest the position has made him a better batsman.

It is one of life’s little quirks that I had the misfortune of being on another continent while Clarke was scoring runs for fun against India back in the summer of 2011/12.

I was even arguing with another Australian I ran into in the public toilets at Prague international airport (of all places) that Clarke was a good captain, a pretty good batsman (I politely said there were 329 reasons why he was at the very least a decent batsman), and whatever you thought of him off-field, it didn’t matter because, let’s face it, he was no Shane Warne.

But there is nothing like a 4-nil whitewash loss in India and a 3-nil pumping in England to give you perspective and remind you you are only as good as your last series, while you need to be better in your next.

Which is why, with that very thought in mind, Michael Clarke finds himself in a somewhat unique position.

It’s arguable that nothing would take the gloss off a 5-nil triumph over the auld enemy more than a loss, comprehensive or otherwise, in South Africa.

It has been a somewhat delightful post-Ashes pleasure to watch the cannibalisation of the English cricket team after the summer of hell and the fall-out from Kevin Pietersen’s removal.

I imagine it is how Queensland have felt for the last eight years watching NSW after each State of Origin series loss.

I mention the debacle that is England because it reminds all that there were two teams playing over the summer. England did not just perform dreadfully on their own, nor did Australia dominate against nobody.

And if England were terrible (though if ‘terrible’ does not do their performance justice, just Google ‘adjectives for bad’ and I’m sure that will suffice), then what does that really say about the Australian performance.

Did England play that badly? Were we really that good?

Thus, in order to perhaps answer both those questions, the South Africa series takes on even more importance.

Gawd help me I love a bit of confidence and swagger in the Australian team. It feels like the cricketing world order has returned to normal.

We have the best bowling attack in the world? Sure. Our batsmen will score the runs we need? If they say so – the way they’re talking, they will all want to hope so.

(Quick sideline: Phil Hughes should be in our batting line-up. What on Earth has that guy done to become poison in the minds of the selectors?)

However, a team that has won only two out of its last five Test series needs to tread carefully.

Clarke was very quick to point out before the away leg of the Ashes series(s) that his captaincy would not be defined by how the team performed in the Ashes.

I tend to agree with that.

His captaincy will be defined by statistics like wins-draws-losses, like any captain. And a loss in South Africa suddenly reminds him he might be looking at having lost four out of six series.

There is no 5-nil Ashes win that can cover that up. Just ask Ricky Ponting.

What do you think Punter is remembered for? Captaining a 5-nil victorious Ashes team, or losing three Ashes series as captain?

And then there are the statistics about Clarke’s batting itself.

I pointed out that his batting went into another stratosphere after he took over the captaincy. Well, I hate to be that guy (okay, okay: I secretly love being that guy), but Clarkey’s form has tapered since the Adelaide Test.

In Tests and one dayers, he hasn’t passed 50 since that second Test.

Whether or not that is something to be concerned about, it’s probably too early to tell. Although, again, I note he worryingly only scored 22 in a recent intra-squad practice match in Potchefstroom.

His statistics as captain over 18 months, a seeming drop in form, it all points to a very important series in South Africa for captain Clarke.

Arguably, for Clarke personally, South Africa is more important than the Ashes.

Clarke, undoubtedly, does not want to be the first post-apartheid Australian captain to lose a Test series in South Africa. Nor would he want everything he has achieved in one glorious summer to be forgotten by failure across the Indian Ocean.

Which is why it would be somewhat even more ironic after a comprehensive, statistically dominant performance against England, that pressure I spoke of is already looming over Michael Clarke’s shoulder.

Those who read my articles on this website (shout out to all three of you: my mum, my flatmate and a mate from Uni who can’t seem to shake me), given I recently blasted Alastair Cook, you might think I have an axe to grind with cricket captains.

I do not.

Believe what you want, but I think Cook makes a perfectly good captain, Clarke more so. One better than the other, but that’s just my opinion.

However, just as one solitary victory is no be-all-and-end-all, nor is one series win a defining moment of a captain’s career. Michael Clarke said so himself.

It is how you handle the pressure of the position in the long-term that truly defines your career, and determines whether you are the right man to take up the position, stay in the position, or ultimately vacate the position.

That very aspect of longevity, more so than any other factor, is what separates Border’s captaincy from Hughes’.

With regards to pressure, as I said to begin with, it comes with the territory.

It’s no Keith Miller-style ‘Messerschmitt up your arse’ type of pressure, but a combination of corporate sponsorship, board members judging, millions watching and expecting, and those juicy substantial wages are but a few of several modern day factors that have created a distinct type of pressure nonetheless.

The highest sporting honour our country can bestow should have that pressure. The Australian cricket captain is the Spider-man of Australian sport: with great power comes great responsibility.

How will that responsibility define Clarke? Will he be grumpy, tubby, broken? Will Pup become a mongrel? I simply cannot wait to find out.

Is the pressure already back on Michael Clarke? Truth be told, it never left.