For the third time Australian Cricket Test captain Michael Clarke has won the Allan Border medal, Australia's most prestigious cricket individual prize. The first time he won it he was a youngster who blasted onto the scene with a quick footed century in India to help win Australia's first test series in India since the captaincy of Bill Lawry and then scoring another equally blistering century against New Zealand at the Gabba. Quick footed and a slashing player he played he shots reminiscent of Michael Slater, his cricketing hero. The next time he won it he was a humbled player having been dropped from the team and eschewing some of his shots for building an innings, perhaps not as spectacular but much more solid as shown by him being Australia's best bat during a losing Ashes series. The third time he won it was as a captain of the two longer forms of the day, in charge of rebuilding the least successful Australian team since the one captained funnily enough by Allan Border.
Clarke was also tasked with rebuilding the side after the retirement of greats such as border but after that the comparisons end. Whereas Border was not the best communicator or tactician and just forced through on sheer mass of will, was even reluctant to take the captaincy; Clarke is one of the best tacticians in the game, seems to communicate well with his young side and has coveted the captaincy and indeed been groomed for the job before he played his first match for Australia.
The result of his captaincy? A series win in Sri Lanka, drawn series in South Africa, drawn series against New Zealand, a 4-0 test romp of an extremely disappointing Indian side and not having lost a one-day series to date. His batting? Stacks of hundreds including his monumental and unselfish 329* in Sydney. There has been hiccups along the way but you cannot argue with those figures. Australia should therefore be completely behind him, but there are many Clarke doubters out there?
The reason? Nothing during his captaincy but things done before. The argument with Simon Katich after a test win at the SCG, (Clarke is on the whole judged to be in the wrong but as shown by Katich's behaviour after rightly being dropped Katich is no bleeding-heart Australian Angel, the way he's carried on since being dropped especially towards Clarke has been poor), the tats, the Lara Bingle thing (not going there) and also a couple of times during tests where he's complained about pitches being too green or not publicly endorsing some of Pontings tactics when vice-captain. Somehow Clarke does small things they get picked on but with Warne they slip off, truly the Mr Sheen of Australian sport.
The truth is however Clarke has handled himself flawlessly of late, there's been no off-field controversies(really none at all during his whole career), no complaining about bad decisions or umpiring, handles media conferences well, complete support of his team and complete dedication to his country. He will retire as one of Australian's great batsmen and captains. Australia still has a huge problem with tall poppy syndrome, but I guess in a country so good with good, well-off (overall) people etc somethings got to not be going well. Herald Sun for starters should not show a negative comment from a "fan" after every day of cricket and Australia should get fully behind Michael. It's only what he deserves.
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