Being fair to Michael

This post was also published on ESPNCricinfo.

As tributes will undoubtedly flow in celebrating Michael Clarke’s achievements as a batsman and a captain, you get the sense that he has hung his boots in anticipation of being pushed out. The cricket establishment is Australia is generally less accommodating than the other big powers, India and England. Tours are not planned to let a start retire at home, nor are MBEs awarded galore after one Ashes victory. We have seen the Australian board effectively transition captaincy from Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting in the past where other cricket boards might have been hesitant is taking strong decisions. In principle, this sounds like a good policy. No player is bigger than the game and one wishes more cricket administrations thought the same. However, in the case of Michael Clarke, the willingness to be rid of him has left a bad taste.

Alastair Cook has been lampooned, MS Dhoni and Shaun Pollock had their detractors, but no international captain barring Sourav Ganguly, has divided opinions like Michael Clarke. Clarke was marked for greatness from an early age. An attacking game, timing to rival Mark Waugh and Damien Martyn, twinkle toes, and solid technique – Clarke’s game had future star written all over on it. Unlike his namesake Hussey, who served an extended apprenticeship in domestic cricket studiously tightening his game every season, Clarke graduated to international cricket early despite modest returns in Sheffield Shield. His first class average was under 40 when he debuted against India in Bangalore. But, if there were any doubts about his ability to score at the top level, his debut century dismissed them conclusively.

More than the runs he scored it was the manner in which he got them that demonstrated his obvious class. In a series which stood out for the strategy of attritional cricket by Australians to deny the Indian batsmen the freedom to score, the tone was ironically set by a very Indian innings played by Clarke. Australian batsmen have traditionally struggled against spinners in the sub-continent. Even those who have come out with flying colours have relied on playing late like Mark Waugh and Damien Martyn, or counted heavily on the sweep with a giant stride outside the crease. The lightning footwork and assured stroke play against Anil Kumble and Harbhajan by this debutant took everyone by complete surprise. While Clarke is widely praised for this innings, most of us fail to note that it was Clarke, and not Hayden, Ponting or Steve Waugh, who played the definitive innings in the only series victory Australia have managed in India in recent decades. Later that season he scored a century on his home debut against New Zealand at Brisbane and it was clear for all to see why Clarke had been spoken of as the future of Australian batting.

As rosy as the start to his career was, Clarke went through his fair share of troubles both on and off the field in the years to come. His propensity to get out right before the end of a session, and failure to perform in critical matches stood against him. More and more, it also became clearer that Clarke’s ‘un-Australian-ness’ was not limited to his on-field comfort in playing spinners but also extended to off-field issues.

In a video interview with Gaurav Kalra, Glenn McGrath provides an entertaining account of the ‘Julios’ and ‘Nerds’ classification in the Australian dressing room. Julios are the pretty boys always concerned with how they look while Nerds don’t really care, as real Australian men don’t. The motif of manliness is a curious one in Australian cricket.  Geoff Lemon, writing for the the Cricket Monthly considers this very Austrian idea of what sporting aggression ought to be. Big moustaches, guzzling pints of beer, incessant abuse at the opponent are synonymous with this manliness. I do not mean to denigrate the brand of cricket Australians play for a number of them have brought great joy to me over the years, but I take issues with the specific things that make many uncomfortable in celebrating their cricketing achievements. I do not see anything wrong with sledging per se, and gamesmanship only makes sports more colorful, but to confuse it with constant hurling of abuse does not do any practitioners of this art any favors. Also, the particular ethos of sledging espoused by the Australians which translates into self righteous anger when other team oversteps the boundaries created by them, is what grates teams and fans from other countries. Alcohol is also a strangely recurrent theme in this mix, be it in the form of the the idea of boys sorting out on-field skirmishes over a bottle of beer, or Shane Warne’s embarrassing chattering about how thirsty the Australian team was after winning the world cup earlier this year. It is no wonder that Clarke’s unwillingness to hang about and have a drink with his mates is supposedly a sore point.

Andrew Symonds called Clarke a great batsman but not a natural leader. In an ironic way, I agree with his assessment. Michael Clarke always felt like an unlikely leader to preside over this culture. He was seen as self-involved, emotionally vulnerable and too glamorous – qualities that did not endear him to the masses.  Virat Kohli has received more than his share of ridicule that come with with being involved with another celebrity. But, even India is more accepting of his relationship with a popular Bollywood actress than Australia was of Clarke’s relationship with a supermodel. Lemon says that for an Australian batsman, being a pretty boy is a crime that only truckloads of runs can absolve. Clarke did that and led his team on the field more ably than his predecessors. If Clarke was another cricketer, his narrative might have been of the guy who scored a string of double hundreds, who battled a broken bone and Morne Morkel to score a hundred, who came back after being retired hurt and scored a hundred mourning the death of his best friend. Along with Mahela Jayawardene, Clarke may have been the captain with most tactical nous in the last two decades. Much as we wish from the game’s leaders, Clarke brought a sense of adventure to test cricket through his imaginative and positive captaincy. Yet to the popular Australian imagination, he did not fit in with their definitions of a hero, to be truly loved. It is in this respect that I feel Clarke has had a bit of a raw deal from his country. To rein in a player for his indiscretions is one thing. But, to be less than fully accepting of him for his differences off the field suggests the hegemony of a culture that leaves little scope for different characters.

To pile on the misery of a neutral Clarke admirer, he decided to embrace the Australian way in the most chest thumping performance by any team in a long time and asked an opponent to get ready for a broken arm. The quest for greatness rests heavy particularly on those marked for greatness. Clarke was often guilty of not being genuine, something you could not fault Ricky Ponting and Steve Waugh for, real men who supposedly did not care for what the world thought. To an outsider relying on reports in the media, Clarke was clearly not the most popular among his own men. His man management of Shane Watson, among others leaves a lot to be desired. But, one wonders, how good a captain he might have been had he been accepted more for who he was.