This game owes me nothing, I owe it everything! Thank you to all of the people who have supported me through good and bad times.
— Michael Clarke August 8, 2015(Reaction on Ashes lose)
Michael Clarke
Stepped into Test Cricket as a replacement for then Captain Ricky Ponting broke his finger in an Australian Tour of India, Border- Gavaskar series, out comes Michael Clarke with his whitish fancy hair style, short lad with quick feet to combat spinners on a turning and bouncy track of Bangalore.
To a very little of information of what damage this short footed lad could make to the strong spinners of India, he blazed his innings with a range of proper cricketing shots. It was as if he was maneuvering the deliveries to their merit and what an innings he began with in India against a mighty spin attack of Indian team in their home soil. He scored 151 in his 1st match as an Australian Test Cricketer giving a tough fight to his current coach and then a test cricketer Darren Lehmann, Simon Katich and Shane Watson.
Michael Clarke has been remarkable since then in 2004 till today in 2015. As high ranked Test batsmen he averages 49.30 with Mammoth 8628 runs with 28 Centuries to his name. One could merely forget his innings of 329* against India came to bat at a difficult situation and took the team out of the blue into a strong winning position.
If we get into deeper and inside with a Dissection of Michael Clarke’s test career against all the top teams, we will get into the value of this precious cricketer of our era. He averaged 41.22 against his competitive arch rivals England. Similarly he has an average over 55 against top nations like India, New Zealand, South Africa and Sri Lanka with big centuries against all mentioned nations. His weak points have been figured out by Pakistani bowlers and West Indian seamers. He averaged below 40 against only these giant nations of world cricket, although he has scored century against both these nations.
Year 2015: A year of mixed emotions for Clarke
With his brotherly team mate Phil Hughes tragedy in later half of 2014 fresh in his brain, he started 2015 in a fresh note with the world cup being hosted after such a long time in Australia and New Zealand in February.
Before starting the campaign of World cup Clarke had in fresh memories the victories of Ashes and India tour. While Michael Clarke, Steve Smith, Mitchell Johnson and Mitchell Starc all coming to the party.
With these confident bunches of players world cup win was always on the cards and humorously they captured the 2015 world cup with sizzling performances throughout the tournament.
A less experienced set of young players were too hot to handle | World Cup 2015
Although brilliant with his captaincy skills, he was getting mocked up with the bat. All the talking were beginning to gather as Steve Smith was rising very tall at important occasions.
For a batsman as a captain who has an average of 52.41, one could hardly believe that by the end of july and early August of same year the stat would fall down below 16.
The Ashes Down under began with a lot of promise foe Australia as they fought back supremely in Lords with a big win after they were outplayed in the First Test of the Brutal series. But after that what happened in Edgebaston and Trent Bridge was series of failure for Michael Clarke as a batsmen as well as a tactful captain.
Edgbaston was digestible, but what followed after that was carnage of English bowler Stuart Broad. He was on fire with 8/15 becoming his career best and bundled out Australia in 110 minutes for merely 60 runs. Its impact was so huge that the shocked cricketing fraternity expected a bunch of changes on playing 11 of Australian team.
With traumatized team members it was just matter of time for Australia to give up Ashes back to England and regain the Urn. Without anyone’s surprise England beat Australia handsomely by an innings and 78 runs, most importantly snatched back Ashes from their top hands.
After this came a shock wave on Australian dressing room as Captain Clarke empties the captaincy boot against Steve Smith and retires from Test cricket. Such a wonderful career with ODI wins, Test wins, World cup wins and Ashes wins came quiet at Trent bridge after Clarke opt out of 22 yards.
We pay homage to a wonderful career of Clarke both as a leader and a batsmen with exceptional fielding skills and wish him luck for his life after cricket. It sumps up all his victories with a mere loss of Ashes at the end of this beautiful career.
