The Hindu : Sport : Clarke lives out his baggy green dream

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 03, 2004

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Clarke lives out his baggy green dream

By Paul Weaver

STYLE AND SUBSTANCE: Michael Clarke is adored by both team-mates and fans. — Photo: Hamish Blair/Getty Images

MUMBAI, NOV. 2. If Steven Spielberg ever makes a film about cricket it might star Michael Clarke, for there is a hint of Hollywood about the undoubted celebrity of the series between India and Australia.

The Australia players call him `Pup', for he scampers and gambols in their midst like a mascot. His hair is blond-rinsed, he wears an earring and he roars about Sydney in a BMW roadster.

He wants to meet David Beckham ("I think he'd be fantastic to talk to") and until recently his bedroom walls were decorated with posters of Brian Lara and Damien Martyn ("I've changed them for chicks now").

He is 23 and one suspects he might always be so, forever young like Endymion. His darting eyes are full of excitement and wonder. He is the fantasist who lived out his dreams.

Now others are buying into his odyssey, suspecting that he might soon be the best batsman in the world and captain of Australia to boot.

"This is all I ever wanted in my life," he says, jigging about so much that he makes Derek Randall seem as still as a statue.

"My teachers said I shouldn't put all my eggs in one basket but that's exactly what I wanted to do."

When Clarke scored 151 in his first Test innings, against India in Bangalore last month, thrilling with the audacity of his stroke-play, it was not only his watching parents who preened in India's garden city. The game itself, with a long list of lost luminaries in recent years, embraced him.

In last week's third Test in Nagpur, Clarke scored 91 and a cudgelling 73, so after six innings he has 376 runs at an average of 75.20.

He is not new to international cricket, having played his first one-day international against England at the Adelaide Oval in January 2003. He has 900 runs at 40.90 from 34 ODIs, which suggests he was ready for Test cricket.

Ultimate feeling

"I really enjoy the one-dayers, wearing yellow clothes, having my name on my back. But wearing the baggy green is the ultimate, the greatest feeling. All I wanted to do was play cricket for Australia and I was willing, and still am, to make whatever sacrifice is needed to achieve my dream.

"I always turned up for training. My mates would be late or not turn up at all but, no matter what, I wouldn't miss a training session. My punishment if I didn't do my homework was no cricket training. I was straight in to do my homework because I was never going to miss my training."

The prodigy from Liverpool, New South Wales, started hitting balls when he was six. His father, who played grade cricket and rugby league, threw balls to him in the backyard.

"We were never rich but my dad did own an indoor sports centre, where I moved after the backyard. It had a bowling machine. A lot of guys have had as much talent as me but I've always had the dedication.

"Then Neil d'Costa started coaching at my dad's centre. Instead of paying my father he coached me, from the age of nine. He's still my coach, manager and best friend. He's living with me and we play for the same club, Western Suburbs.

Quick progress

"My dad coached half my teams between six and 14 and would retire me whenever I got to 100, which was annoying." After that the rise was steep. He played first-grade cricket at 16 and represented New South Wales and Australia at youth level. He made his first-class debut for New South Wales when he was 18.

By now he had left school. "I didn't enjoy it. All I wanted was to get to lunchtime so I could do cricket training and then go home so I could do some more." He did, however, complete courses in sports administration and public speaking (the latter might serve him well too).

Now, when he fields at second slip beside Shane Warne and Adam Gilchrist, players recently included in an all-time World XI, it is easy to understand his excitement.

"It's unbelievable. This year I was in a car with Warnie in Hampshire — where I really struggled to make runs — and I told him that two years ago I would have done anything in the world just to meet him. And here we are talking like best mates. It's happened so fast."

Bubbling with energy

His team-mates adore him, not just for the brilliance of his cricket, his fast feet and ability to pick the length early, but for the energy and exuberance he has brought to the side.

Yet he did not force his way in through the weight of runs in the domestic game. "You just can't describe the pleasure you get when you back a young bloke who maybe didn't have the first-class statistics to justify selection," says Allan Border, the former captain who is now a Test selector. "It was just a gut feeling and some knowledge of the character of the guy. It's felt almost as good as playing myself to see a kid take on one of the toughest assignments in the game and come through."

Gilchrist is unconcerned by Clarke's flashiness. "None of it is manufactured by a big ego," the captain says. "He has a natural flair. And, if you see him driving a Ferrari, it's not because success has gone to his head but because he's always loved cars.

"He's a very passionate, emotional young man with a cool head, though he's one of the most nervous batsmen I've seen prior to going in to bat."

Clarke confesses: "My team-mates are always telling me to sit down because I'm making them nervous." They must be reassured by now.

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