Michael Clarke

Michael Clarke’s support for Mitchell Johnson is getting ridiculous

Michael Clarke concluded early on in his tenure that his man management of Mitchell Johnson would involve unconditional love, no matter what the tufty-haired purveyor of left-arm ineptitude did with the ball.

Johnson hasn’t taken many wickets recently, but Clarke’s been steadfast in his support. Someone should tell him he can give it a rest now.

Johnson is expected to have surgery on his left big toe this week and is likely to be out of action for about five months.

Seemingly engaging ‘mindless support mode’, Clarke said:

“I think it could have a good impact on him. It will give him more time away from the game to clear his head and get himself fit and strong.”

For once, we’ve got some sympathy for Johnson, because the poor sod’s already at a low ebb and is now going to miss basically a whole season. However, the idea that sitting on his arse with his foot in the air for half a year will somehow improve him as a bowler isn’t all that convincing.

Due a big score, due a hundred

We’ve written about batsmen being ‘due’ a score before. The idea is that if a batsman isn’t scoring any runs, he’s actually stockpiling them for a future innings.

The idea seems to be that every batsman has a quota of runs that he can allocate as he chooses. A terrible run of scores is a sign of a sensible batsman investing runs for a later date and is therefore a good thing.

It’s balls, obviously – balls that have been in Michael Clarke’s mouth:

“Hopefully I have saved a few runs for Adelaide.”

Don’t use them yet, Michael. Save them for Sydney, or better yet, Christchurch or Kolkata.

The five best batsmen over the next five years

The big names are generally old bastards. Who’s next?

Ross Taylor, New Zealand, age 25

Ross Taylor tends to look like he’s the man who’s going to win the match for New Zealand shortly before doing something slightly spacky. Pretty soon those fifties will become hundreds and those hundreds will become double hundreds.

JP Duminy, South Africa, 25

Duminy has barely started in Test cricket, but has the reassuring habit of being exceptional whatever the format. Twenty20’s just for sloggers, is it? Then why is Duminy so effective. The best batsmen are generally the best batsmen in all forms of the game.

AB de Villiers, South Africa, 25

Yes, he is only 25. There are already bowlers in world cricket who’d sooner try and insert a bat handle into their urethra than bowl at vehement letter-C denier, AB de Villiers.

Michael Clarke, Australia, 28

Recently voted ‘most overrated player’ by readers of the Herald Sun, Michael Clarke must be rated really, really, phenomenally highly. Quite clearly following in the footsteps of Border, Waugh and Ponting as an Aussie captain who’s mint with the bat.

Gautam Gambhir, India, 28

Test average after 18 Tests: 36, with one hundred. Test average in the next nine Tests: 94, with seven hundreds. Gautam Gambhir is up and running.

Ashes players to watch tomorrow

You might have noticed a certain jaded world-weariness about our recent Ashes coverage as a result of mindless media coverage smotheration. It feels right that we should return to our natural demeanour at a time when everyone else is bouncing about like there’s a lot of bouncing to be done in the strange belief that mindless bouncing ever solved anything.

We haven’t picked cricketers to watch because they’ll be eye-catching. We’ve had a think and these are three who we think will play a big part.

Michael Clarke

He’s not trendy and exciting any more, like Phil Hughes. He’s not got the monumental record of Ricky Ponting or the inflated average of Mike Hussey. But whereas the likes of Hussey and Katich rely on experience and sound decision-making for Test runs, Michael Clarke is more like Ponting. He has better hand-eye co-ordination than most, quick feet and plays all the shots.

However, unlike Ponting, he’s got a long way to go. We’ve probably seen Ponting’s best, but Clarke could get even better. He’s probably still on an upward curve.

Hussey, Katich and even Marcus North are other low-key batsmen to watch as well, because all three have years and years of cricket in England behind them.

Ravi Bopara

Never mind Kevin Pietersen, Ravi Bopara seems as likely to score runs as any England batsmen right now. A lot of cricket people seem to think Bopara’s some kind of geezer, but he just seems like a nice bloke who plays cricket to us. He plays it very well and he’ll be immune to the Ashes pressures, which is absolutely vital in the quest for runs.

Whether he’s immune to the pressure because he’s confident or because he hasn’t really noticed quite what’s going on is a moot point – although we’d bet on it being both.

James Anderson

We’ve picked two batsmen above, but batsmen are really just obstacles to victory. Bowlers decide series. England’s best chance of dismissing a hugely strong and quite possibly long Australian batting line-up is through swing. Swing a cricket ball and you can get the very best players out.

It’s hard to think of another swing bowler who can work a great batsman over as comprehensively as James Anderson (Zaheer Khan, maybe). Old school inswing and outswing with the new ball and their reverse swing counterparts with the old one. All bowled with thought. All bowled with control.

If the ball doesn’t swing, he’s a bit blunted, but if it does, James Anderson is the man to dismiss cussed batsmen who are hard to beat and who rarely make mistakes.

Simon Katich grabs Michael Clarke by the throat

Simon Katich went for Michael Clarke in the dressing rooms after Australia beat South Africa at the SCG last month.

You can’t blame him. If we were in the same team as Michael Clarke, we’d probably have drawn up some sort of schedule as to which days we were going to punch him square in his smug face. The punch-in-the-face days would be the ones when we could bear to be in the same room as him.

The argument was a hugely worthy one. Michael Clarke wanted the team to sing their team song earlier than usual. Simon Katich presumably didn’t.

Clarke wanted the song sung by 11pm, but only The Custodian Of The Song can decide when it is sung. Mike Hussey currently holds this sacred post and he decided that the song should be sung at nearly midnight. We’ve suddenly warmed to Mike Hussey.

All this is true, by the way. We should make that clear. We’re not averse to making stuff about the Australians, but on this occasion we’re innocent and they’re mental, rather than vice versa.

Michael Clarke is a proper batsman

Michael Clarke and Ian Bell. Two munchkin-faced, thimble-sized men who’ve made knowledgeable cricket folk go all quivery with their batsmanship. They’re much the same age and apparently both have “natural talent” instead of a skeleton.

However, one’s dithering along the same as he always has done, while the other’s a cussed run machine. No prizes for guessing which one’s which – not because it’s easy, but because we never have prizes.

Michael Clarke’s career can be neatly split in two. His first 22 matches defines a period of Ian Bell ditheration, where he played some blinding innings and got himself out a fair few times. In the next 22 matches, he averages 63.3.

Clarke’s not as much fun to watch any more and he’s turned into a bit of a holier-than-thou puritan, but you’d want him in the side. He’s now hit a hundred in each of his last seven series following the relatively sluggish 138 he made over the weekend.

Michael Clarke’s taken the same approach as Gautam Gambhir. He’s an attacking batsman who doesn’t feel he HAS to attack. Those are always the best batsmen. They’ve got range.

Why Andrew Symonds fell out with Michael Clarke

Andrew Symonds said:

“I did something silly with him one night and I suppose I was a bit disrespectful to him.”

What does that sound like to you? It sounds like it could only be one thing to us. What act is both silly and disrespectful? Ask yourself that.

It is abundantly clear to us that Andrew Symonds gave Michael Clarke a wedgie.

Michael Clarke does some sort of deal with the devil

He must have sold something to Satan to take three wickets in the penultimate over to win this Test for Australia. It can’t have been his soul though, because he must have already sold that to Ricky Ponting to bring him on to bowl in the first place. Maybe it was his testicles. Would Satan want those?

So Ponting thinks: ‘We need three wickets and there are four overs to go. Should I go with Brett Lee or Michael Clarke? Let’s go with Clarke.’

To be fair it turned out to be the right choice. Wonder how Brad Hogg’s feeling about it though. It’s one thing to be outbowled by Andrew Symonds, who’s only a spinner half the time, but to be outbowled by Michael Clarke? He’s a spinner just about none of the time.

Michael Clarke has now taken nine wickets against India at an average of 5.11 after taking 6-9 at the Wankhede stadium in 2004 on a pitch which made a cobbled street look like polished marble.

For all England’s talk of ‘putting the opposition under pressure’, this is the way it’s done. Australia are masters at it. You have to put the umpires under pressure as well, but that’s all part of it.

Australia, we salute you.

Mike Hussey and Michael Clarke do that Australian thing

Yes, they stand on the beach, hurling a boomerang round a bemused kangaroo with Men At Work blaring out in the background, all the while continually telling you how rubbish everything is in England.

No, it’s the other thing, grinding cricket opponents into miserable submission.

242-3 overnight becomes 551-4 declared with all the long, insufferable predictability of a typical day at work. ‘Maybe if we could get Mike Hussey or Michael Clarke out we could have some success against the new batsman,’ you think. But you NEVER get them out, so you just end up thinking that all day.

Actually, Mike Hussey was eventually out, but all this means is that Andrew Symonds comes in and wallops a quick fifty with a big goofy grin on his face.

Then you have to bat and you’re so deflated after nigh-on two days with barely a wicket that you just can’t concentrate. So even ordinarily-profligate Brett Lee can wind up with figures of 2-4 off five overs.

It’s no fun playing against Australia. We’re not even sure it’s that much fun playing FOR Australia. You’re winning, but it’s almost drudgery.