Quick single: Timeline of Clarke’s international careerīut with the cricket trophy that Australians cherish above all others forsaken, rampant speculation about his future quashed by his own pre-emptive retirement announcement and criticism of his team raining down from every angle, this was a grimmer tale than could have been imagined.Īnd despite his best efforts, the man who had singlehandedly turned around public opinion of his character when named captain, rallied his team from bleak times to oversee epic triumphs, and led the cricket world through an unprecedented period of grief was battling to summon one last effort.
Surveying the preparations at The Oval for a Test match that will confirm his exit from the game, and the symbolic handover of the Ashes.Īs he is want to say, paraphrasing Steve Waugh who was captain of NSW in his maiden first-class summer of 1999-2000, there are no fairy tales in sport.
It wasn’t solely that weight which hung heavy over him as he sat, alone, amid a bank of white plastic seats on a grey, gloomy afternoon masquerading as summer in south London. England pay their respects to Michael ClarkeĪ Test career that began more brightly than most others of recent decades with a heart-warming hundred on debut, in front of family members flushed with pride and a prime time television audience back home who celebrated the arrival of the latest Rolls Royce off Australian cricket’s production line.įrom the time he was summoned from the national under-19 team that he captained to play for New South Wales, to his gilded arrival on the Test scene on a history making tour of India, Michael Clarke was the boy burdened to carry Australia beyond its era of heroes.
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