Michael Clarke - Is the end very near?

[Timbo]

The comment from Hayden blows my mind.

The rookie always fields at short leg unless they are an unnaturally talented slipper.

But not Clarke I guess. Too good for that sort of thing!

 

[some11]

I really hated the bloke after the Katich incident, the purple patch in 2012 sort of scrubbed his image clean for a while but it's all starting to come back now.

I don't really know what to make of it, telling it as it is? cheap shots at a man retiring? a warning to Steve Smith?

 

[PARRA_FAN]

Its sad in a way he's retiring now when we've lost the Ashes but take nothing away from a great career.

From the time he stepped out to bat at Bangalore in his debut to an inspirational leader.

Id like to congratulate Clarke on his career and best of luck for the future.

So many memories of Pup come to mind. His debut innings in India, his 300 odd against them at the SCG, his first ton in Australia against the Black Caps, two more double tons in 2012.

And of course he captained us to a 5-0 Ashes victory, I think on the 3rd to achieve it, a hard fought series win in South Africa, a clean sweep against India and the recent World Cup victory.

Just with his batting, people remember those innings I mentioned, but a few come to mind that rarely get a mention.

He played a good innings against England, in the Amazing Adelaide test. Whilst Ponting and Hussey put on a good partnership, we were still 300 behind. Clarke stepped up and scored his first Ashes ton, and put on a good partnership with Warney, to get us past 500.

He followed that up with an innings in Perth the next test, which was overshadowed by a quick ton from Gilly and Hussey's first ton at Perth. He finished with 135 not out.

That pretty much sealed his spot in the test team, cause if you remember, he came in for the injured Watson, having been dropped a year earlier.

And who can forget his 329 against India. A superb innings taking on the Indian batsman. Couldve easily gone past Bradman's best score, but unselfishly declared to force India to bat, just so we can win in the test.

Obviously its been a difficult period for Clarke, with injuries and the loss of his mate Phil Hughes.

I hope he goes out a winner.

 

[Twizzle]

Funny how all the knives are coming out now.

I read the article from Buchy this morning and thought, how ironic, all he did was play with his laptop and was more of a stats man than a coach. Given the team that he had, he really didn't have that much to do.

 

[undertaker]

These rings true, and to me seems an extension of the Shane Warne view on things.

Like how Warney constantly bemoans the wearing of the Baggy Green in the first innings in the field.

I feel also it was a case of a promotion to Captain due to lack of other options at the time. But he may have grown into it later on, and this was something that the older brigade weren't around to see.

He does seem to have shat on some people on the way up though, and they are getting there comeuppance now.

Not to mention Shane Warne is Ian Chappell's puppet. Chappelli was never a fan of cricket coaches, going back to when Bob Simpson helped out Allan Border during his early years of captaincy when the side was going through a huge transformation post Greg Chappell/Marsh/Lillee retirements followed by the South African Rebel Tours (which led to several players making their debuts earlier than anticipated, such as Steve Waugh).

It was because of the Simpson-Border alliance that we became no.1 in the world a decade later during Taylor's reign: Winning became a must, not a should : something that seems to be lacking with most of the current crop of players, who'd much prefer to be dancing around the world in T20 tournaments, spending most of their time posing on the front cover of magazines, sponsorship deals, playing all these unorthodox cricket shots (with the toys, as James Brayshaw would say) etc.

 

[Red Bear]

Some of this anti-Clarke stuff is just rewriting history. He's scored a helluva lot of runs, many of them 'important' ones during his career. Numerous innings in South Africa, England, Aus and India spring to mind. Just because he's gone out with a wimper (as can happen when injuries catch up) doesn't erase his last decade. He was also a breath of fresh air as a captain after the completely dire last couple of years of Ponting.

The comment from Hayden blows my mind.

The rookie always fields at short leg unless they are an unnaturally talented slipper.

But not Clarke I guess. Too good for that sort of thing!

Hayden's a dickhead, though, so who knows how much truth there is to that.

Doesn't seem a great look (generally in a team you do what is expected of you), although in fairness Clarke would've been in the best few fieldsman in that side.

Short leg as always struck me as completely unprofessional in a professional sport - surely you put who is best there, not just the most recent member of the squad.

 

[Twizzle]

it has been traditional to put the newbies at bat pad, you have to be f**king mad to field there and no one else wants to do it

Boonie was the best I ever saw, he loved it.

 

[PARRA_FAN]

You brought up Boonie, I just have visions of that catch for Warney's hattrick.

 

[undertaker]

Boonie was the best I ever saw, he loved it.

The mo maketh the man:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qLnHIuOf6k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMU4RmoEx_o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=divBUpFWE0c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC_F4ZhIXfY

 

[undertaker]

You brought up Boonie, I just have visions of that catch for Warney's hattrick.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnhZCe73LH8

 

[Bazal]

The thing that gets me is the hate that's directed at Clarke from the same people (around the traps, not necessarily just here) that levelled harsh criticism at the boys club of Australian cricket. Clarke rubbed that boys club the wrong way, according to some reports. Good, I say. I'm not saying Clarke is perfect. But he was, IMO, the perfect next generation after the mates club that Aussie cricket had become. Hayden and Ponting and the like were dinosaurs, Clarke was the new blood. Maybe they rubbed each other the wrong way at times, but that doesn't make either right or wrong. The game changed, and with that so did the people playing the game.

I'm a big Michael Clarke fan, I've never made a secret of that. He was, for me, the best Australian cricketer of his generation and if not for injuries would go down as one of the all time greats. He might still, in that his performances in the years after being named captain were some of the best of his era. All the off field stuff, all the stuff about an attitude...it's all subjective. What's not subjective are his achievements and I think that guys like Hayden and Buchanan trying to cloud that says more about them than Clarke.

 

[PARRA_FAN]

Its really annoying that we've had media reports putting down Clarke and ex players coming out saying he was not good. Why now? Why not bag the bloke then?

Look whatever Clarke did off the field I dont really care, but all I really cared was what was achieved on the field.

Soon as Clarke took over the captaincy, he did things his way and it sort of changed the way we played. Just before that we were humiliated by England over here, something needed to change.

Clarke was the typcial Australian captain, he wanted to win.

Ok he wasnt one of the 'boys' but generally that can be good thing.

Like Merv Hughes said tonight on the Back Page, Allan Border stopped all that stuff and we ended up winning the Ashes. He didnt care if Clarke wasnt "one of the boys", he got us the results thats all it mattered. I noticed Hughes wasnt impressed with Buchannan's comments.

And as for Symonds bagging Clarke, well his behaviour didnt help. To skip a training session for a fishing trip just showed the attitude of Roy. Regardless of who we were playing, you're in the Australian team, you attending a session. Not the first time he was stood down for poor behaviour. If you didnt like it, tough.

 

[Bazal]

Roy was one of the boys. Notice only the lads have bagged Clarke? Even Buchanan was more one of the boys than a coach...

 

[Canard]

Its really annoying that we've had media reports putting down Clarke and ex players coming out saying he was not good. Why now? Why not bag the bloke then?

I don't get this view.

It's an unwritten thing that you don't public bag current players and captains etc. lest you be blamed with "contributing" to their downfall.

Clearly this site has always skewed towards NSW in all things so I can see why he is so well liked.

But this is virtually unprecedented in the modern era that so many would come out and say this.

To me not travelling with the team and his friendship with Warne showed that he wasn't a team player. I rate him as a great batsmen, but not as a great captain. Much like Ponting really.

 

[undertaker]

Warne sticking up for his mate again:

http://www.news.com.au/sport/cricke...ke/story-fnu2penb-1227481339909?pg=1#comments

and from that link:

MollyPolly
Posted at 9:04 AM Today
Comment 34 of 52

Let's get Simon Katich's opinion! He paid the ultimate price for venting his frustration on our glamour boy captain. As for Warnie, go find your old Nokia ... and vent your frustration by texting with both hands.

:lol:

and LOL at the hypocrisy of this statement from Warne:

WARNIE ON WAGS...
“The only people who can tell you if it’s a distraction or not are the players. Now the players need to spend time together and it’s all about the balance. We can’t go back to the old-school ways and say the wives aren’t allowed at the hotel and told they’ve got to wait outside, like we did in the early ’90s. But I don’t think they should be all together all the time. There’s got to be some team time.”

Yeah Warney, that didn't stop you from having a steamy night in the hotel with those two sheias

and also the hypocrisy at having a go at Symonds for his drinking:

http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport/warnes-greatest-regret/story-e6frepmo-1111117718358

SHANE Warne has admitted he often got drunk during the 2005 Ashes tour then cried himself to sleep while asking: "You dickhead, what are you doing?"

In tomorrow's Daily Telegraph newspaper, the cricket legend reveals that after dominating events on the field he would return to his hotel room at night and drink himself into a stupor, the remorse and guilt gnawing at him.

His marriage to Simone had disintegrated and if the UK tabloids were to be believed, Warne had more lovers than Casanova.

"At night I'd lay there and go `s..., when am I going to see my kids? There were times I'd sit there and drink my mini bar until three in the morning just to get to sleep. Set the alarm, wake up and say `here we go again'.

"I cried a fair bit when I was by myself. 'You dickhead, what are you doing? What have you done?' ''

 

[Bazal]

I am far from a Warnie fan, mate, but having had a marriage shit itself I reckon that's an unreasonably harsh criticism of the guy.....

 

[JJ]

WTF, pretty obvious why his marriage disintegrated... there is no criticism too harsh for him imo

 

[Bazal]

I'm not in a position to comment about disintegrating marriages, or the reasons for them. My point is it's rather harsh to use the way he coped as a comparison to Symonds' recreational drinking issue, that's all.

 

[JJ]

Fair enough

:lol: gee, I didn't know Warne had no respect for Buchanan

The old "he's never played the game argument" :lol: guess he'll be calling Hesson a short so and so too... and Bayliss never achieved much either

FMD, Warne is a blight on human kind

 

[Twizzle]

Warnie and Buchy go back to when he was coach, this feud has been around for ages.

The media know that if they shove a mic in front of Warnie they will get a story.