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aggression on the field of play, something he will not refrain from reminding team-mates as well as opponents.
England and South Africa were taken aback by the zeal with which Clarke’s team pursued Test victories last season, and in the UAE the young batsman Steven Smith was surprised to be told by Clarke to cease making small talk with the Pakistani batsman Azhar Ali on day one of the second Test in Abu Dhabi.
Clarke indicated to Smith that Azhar’s friends were in the Pakistani viewing area, not out on the field, recalling nothing so much as Andrew Symonds’ words during the 2007-08 Monkeygate episode that “a Test match is no place to be friendly with an opposition player”. Launching his Captain’s Diary 2013-14, Clarke said friendships had to be left at the boundary’s edge.
“There’s a time and place for it,” Clarke said of Smith’s chatter with Azhar. “Especially the position we were in the game, we were trying to take wickets. On the field we were focused and dedicated to having success, off the field I love when guys are catching up for a coffee, beer, whatever it is.
“I hope opposition teams respect that once we walk out onto the field we’re going to play a tough brand of cricket, that’s our style and that’s how we play our best, and that’s the Australian way I think, that’s our culture. But our team is also a big believer that win, lose or draw we’ll walk into the opposition change room, congratulate them and have a beer with them after a Test series or match.”
Clarke’s unwillingness to retreat from the hostile posture his team took on for most of last summer was understandable given the results it reaped, though there were occasional moments when England, South Africa and even the West Indies expressed their displeasure about it, in varying ways. The arrival of India for Tests, limited overs matches and the World Cup may yet produce another flashpoint.
In the book’s foreword, Shane Warne referred to Clarke’s threat that James Anderson “get ready for a broken f***ing arm” as the moment “I believe Australia saw the very competitive, tough Michael Clarke I know, and accepted him as an Australian hero”. It played well in public for Clarke, even if the ICC fined him as a result of the comment being broadcast via stump microphone.
The release of the diary will provide Clarke and others with a reminder that the formula settled upon in Australia last summer was ideal for winning Test matches on fast antipodean pitches, meaning they should not be in a hurry to change much as a result of defeat to Pakistan. However Clarke admitted that advice to curb some of the team’s high tempo approach, including from the former captain Ricky Ponting, would not be forgotten whenever next Australia played in Asian climes.
“I think we learned a lot about the way we went about it in the UAE, there’s no doubt about that,” Clarke said. “I read a lot of the stuff that was written about my captaincy and my style of captaincy in those conditions, and our style of play with the bat in those conditions and yeah I think we can certainly learn from what past players are saying and other teams are doing.
“You’d be silly to not take notice of how Pakistan batted. I said after the first Test the way Younis Khan played is a really good learning curve for our batters. They play a different style of cricket to us, so I’m not saying we have to play exactly like them, but I think we’d be silly not to learn from people who do it on a regular basis in those conditions.
“We’ve got these few days at home to work out areas of our game to improve, then we go into camp and start playing some more cricket together. It doesn’t guarantee success, but the fortunate thing is we’re playing in conditions we’re accustomed to, so that makes it more comfortable but we still have to be at our best to beat South Africa, to beat India, to win the tri-series and then go through a World Cup.”
It’s a searching schedule, and Clarke’s publishers appeared to think there was not a moment to lose. One attempted to call a halt to the launch in the middle of a question, then sought to emphasise the point by starting to move a book banner behind the author. Unperturbed, Clarke answered the query – such composure will not go amiss this summer.
