Clarke upheld the spirit despite defeat

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 19 Maret 2013 | 21.24

MUMBAI: "Only one team played in the spirit of the game," was Kumble's mournful but pointed response when India were cheated of a win and defeated in the second Test at Sydney in January 2008.

That loss was a result of biased umpiring and the Australian fielders including skipper Ricky Ponting claiming catches that were not quite fair.

Legendary cricket writer, the late Peter Roebuck, had even commented about the way Ponting and the rest of his team behaved during the Test.

In January 2008, he wrote a stinging comment that Ponting has lost the moral right to captain his country post the acrimonious events of the Sydney Test, which included a racism charge by Andrew Symonds on Harbhajan Singh, and a series of blunders by umpire Steve Bucknor.

"Ponting must be sacked as captain of the Australian cricket team. If Cricket Australia cares a fig for the tattered reputation of our national team in our national sport, it will not for a moment longer tolerate the sort of arrogant and abrasive conduct seen from the captain and his senior players over the past few days.

Beyond comparison, it was the ugliest performance put up by an Australian side for 20 years. The only surprising part of it is that the Indians have not packed their bags and gone home.

There is no justice for them in this country, nor any manners," he wrote.

Comparing Ponting to an aggressive ringleader who leads a pack of dogs, Roebuck further wrote, "In the past few days Ponting has presided over a performance that dragged the game into the pits.

He turned a group of professional cricketers into a pack of wild dogs. As much can be told from the conduct of his closest allies in the team."

One of those allies was Michael Clarke, who was his understudy for a number of years and had been marked as a captain-in-waiting ever since he started playing. Clarke claimed up a bumped catch, which sent back Sourav Ganguly, who was constructing a fine partnership with Rahul Dravid and was helping India inch towards a draw.

He would have noticed the acrimony that it had caused and despite the ruthless streak in him, as captain, he has tried to lead the team in an exemplary manner.

While his role in 'homework gate' and his deteriorating relationship with deputy Shane Watson has been a public relations disaster, Clarke did everything right to play the game in the right spirit as India closed in on a famous and thrilling win in Mohali to lead the series 3-0.

After the Aussie tail had frustrated India for nearly two hours and eaten into the time and stipulated overs, India were left with a chase of 133 in a minimum of 27 overs. Yes, the Aussies need not have bowled more than 27 overs.

Yet, Clarke hardly indulged in time wasting nor did he tell his bowlers to bowl wide off the stumps. Instead, the Aussie bowlers were at the Indian batsmen and made run scoring incredibly difficult for them.

Could we have expected the same from his famous predecessors Steve Waugh and Ponting? One is not so sure.

Clarke went on to say that a defensive, time-wasting mindset never entered his psyche as India set about their run-chase. Possibly the fact that even a draw would have meant a lost series would have prompted Clarke to not try anything defensive.

"We still believed that we could win the Test," Clarke said. "We thought there were going to be opportunities to take wickets, knowing that India were going to have to score at a decent pace.

In that first hour when we went out and bowled we could have taken as much time as possible, wasted time to slow the scoring and not bowl many overs because I knew once 3.30 came around, we had to bowl 15 overs in the last hour.

But I don't think that's the way we play our cricket. We try to win and unfortunately that wasn't the case. We couldn't get a draw, so we deal with a loss," he added.

Clarke was one of the protagonists in the Monkeygate incident and was very vocal about the need for strong punishments for alleged racists or cricketers making racist remarks.

His very Aussie mindset back in 2008 had made him quite a hated figure in India. That, coupled with his constant refusal to be a part of the IPL, and his anti-IPL comments had only increased that resentment towards him.

However, his leadership on Monday and the way he made the team fight, would have made many Indian cricket fans fall in love with him.


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