Clarke to be inducted into Aussie cricket's hall of fame

Through a glittering career that spanned almost a dozen years at the top, Michael Clarke was both a man of his time, and the right man at the right time for Australia.

A product of Liverpool in Sydney's rough-and-tumble western suburbs, Clarke's fighting qualities were shaded in his formative years of elite cricket by the brightness of his batting gifts.

So too did his seemingly bottomless ability mask a steely resolve that underpinned his prolonged success, helping him through endless painful hours of preparation and recovery as he managed a chronic back condition.

More than his preternatural talents, these were the traits that initially endeared him to the batting greats he played alongside, and who quickly dubbed him 'Pup' due to his comparative youth in that legendary group.

By then Clarke, an Australia U19s skipper in 2000, was already being touted as a future national team captain; almost from the get-go with Australia, his confidence and charisma suggested to those watching closely he was a young man set to move mountains.

It was 11 first-class matches before Clarke made his maiden hundred, in March 2001. He went into the Sheffield Shield clash against Victoria at the SCG averaging 25 but against an attack led by Paul Reiffel and Matthew Inness, the 19-year-old batted for four hours across a couple of rain-affected days to make a fine 106.

"(Clarke) came into the NSW team last season," wrote journalist Phil Wilkins, "but his maiden hundred yesterday indicated he would be a permanent feature for a decade."

Two hundreds in the next Shield summer were followed by another four in 2002-03, and the youngster was on his way, earning himself Australia A call-ups and then, at 21, a national debut.  

Clarke's first showing in Australia's ODI team was a harbinger of his international career. In a low-scoring affair against England in Adelaide in January 2003, Australia stumbled to 6-104 in pursuit of 153, before the young No.6's assured 39no saw them home. A wicket and a direct-hit run-out completed an impressive maiden appearance.

"You don't know if you're ready until you've had the opportunity," he said afterward. "Now that I have had the opportunity, I think, Yeah, I'm good enough."

As a late call-up for the injured Damien Martyn in the Caribbean a few months later, Clarke showcased his ability to play to different match situations, adding scores of 75no and 55no to his fast-growing portfolio. In fact, it was four innings and 208 runs before he was dismissed in ODI cricket.

Even at that early juncture, Clarke's marketing appeal was evident.

"The phone has been ringing off the hook since his 75 not out," his manager at the time, Ross Musso, told The Sydney Morning Herald. "People are realising the boy is heading places."

With the careers of Michael Bevan and Darren Lehmann both approaching their ends, and the Waugh twins having played their final ODIs in 2002, Clarke – with his handy left-arm orthodox spin and lethal fielding inside the ring – soon proved an irresistible limited-overs package for national selectors.  

By the time he won his maiden Test cap in October 2004, he had already played 34 ODIs, was averaging 40.90 and had posted a maiden international hundred. With Steve Waugh having played his final Test earlier the same year, the timing for Clarke's arrival seemed right.  

And for all of his early promise, nothing stamped Clarke as a generational talent like his jaw-dropping 151 on Test debut in Bengaluru. Against the feared spin duo of Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh, the 23-year-old waltzed into history, striking 18 fours and four sixes in a near six-hour stay during which he at times even outshone fellow hundred-maker Adam Gilchrist.

With his parents, grandparents and batting coach Neil D'Costa in the stands, Clarke switched from helmet to Baggy Green as he approached three figures, then duly kissed the coat of arms on his cap upon reaching the milestone.

"He played absolutely magnificently," Simon Katich, who was at the other end when Clarke came to the middle, told cricket.com.au in 2024. "It was a masterclass in how you play spin. But it was also a statement in terms of saying, 'Look, I've arrived – I'm meant for this level'."

Australia won that match largely off the back of Clarke's heroics, while his double of 91 and 73 in the third Test win was also decisive. In the fourth Test, on a Mumbai minefield and with Australia missing an injured Shane Warne, he even conjured up 6-9 with the ball, ending a history-making tour on which he had been the man with the Midas touch.

If all of that wasn't enough to affirm Clarke's status as Australia's next cricket superstar, then his first Test innings on home soil certainly was.

Against the Black Caps at the Gabba, he again teamed up with Gilchrist to pull his side out of trouble, this time showing his home crowd exactly what all the fuss had been about. For the older spectators, a pulled four to bring up his hundred from the final ball before lunch on day three brought the feats of Doug Walters to mind, which was fitting given the similarly spectacular arrival on the Test scene they had both enjoyed.

At that point, Clarke was just about untouchable; a 23-year-old with a batting average of 67 and a burgeoning reputation as the hottest young commodity in Australian sport.

"He's the best young batsman I've seen since Ricky Ponting," said Greg Chappell. "His attitude and talent is just awesome, and I look forward to watching him play for many years, because he'll be a champion."

Yet even the best young players must put up with the troughs beside the peaks, and such was the timing, Clarke's first lean patch drew more analysis than most.

Where Shane Warne and even Ponting had arrived on the scene prior to the ubiquity of the internet, Clarke was not so fortunate. Perhaps Australia's first cricket superstar of a new digital age, the young, dashing batter attracted considerable fame beyond the confines of sport. While he has said it was not something he courted – in fact he insists there were times he actively shied away from it – his high-profile endorsements and his relationship with Sydney model Lara Bingle combined to make him as appealing to the media as he was to selectors.

Yet as the fame rose, the form lapsed. Clarke went two years and one axing between Test hundreds. Dropped during the home summer of 2005-06, he returned a better player; the impetuousness of his youth replaced by a harder edge.

Centuries in consecutive Ashes Tests in Adelaide and Perth followed, and as the passage of time began to naturally pull apart a great Australian side, Clarke delivered on his promise as the great white hope.

Inside three years, he piled on another 10 hundreds in Baggy Green and was an unsung hero in Australia's dominant 2007 World Cup triumph. By the 2009 Ashes, during which his batting average ticked past 50 in his 50th Test, he had probably overtaken Ponting – and fended off Mike Hussey – to be Australia's best batter.

After Australia's dismal 2010-11 Ashes showing, Clarke assumed the Test and ODI leadership full-time from Ponting, ending a challenging captain-and-deputy relationship that both players looked back on ruefully in their respective autobiographies, with Clarke adding that "it was the worst thing for me to be anointed as the heir apparent".

"Somehow, the perception became that I was telling the world I was going to be the next captain, and I had sought it out," he wrote. "The truth was the opposite."

Despite his reservations, Clarke quickly proved himself a natural tactician and a leader who inspired by deeds. Those deeds became legendary in 2012, when he became the first batter in Test history to pile on four double hundreds (including his magnificent 329no against India in Sydney) in a calendar year.

Until then, the highest of his 17 hundreds had been his fabulous 168, made against the Kiwis in Wellington in March 2010 and with his break-up with Bingle still making front-page news. Perhaps only his debut innings, or his remarkable 151 against South Africa in Cape Town in November 2011 (made in the first innings of Australia's infamous 47 all out match) bettered that performance. But by 2012, Clarke had morphed into a different batting beast altogether.  

This was Clarke at his imperious best. Monster hundreds suddenly became the norm. Rising to the world's number one Test batting ranking, he routinely met the rising ball – first against India and then South Africa – with the full face of his bat, driving with absolute command through mid-off and cover in particular. When it took his fancy, he would instead leave his stroke selection until the latest moment and angle the ball anywhere behind point for the same resulting boundary.

Against South Africa in Adelaide amid a golden 2012-13 summer, Clarke hit 40 of them on the opening day amid his unbeaten 224 from 243 balls; nowadays history recalls that day – during which the hosts piled on 5-482 – as much for Ponting's famous stumble from a Jacques Kallis yorker as for his successor's brilliance. But it was fittingly acknowledged at the time.

"If there is a cricket ground that could contain Michael Clarke right now, it is not the economy-sized Adelaide Oval and its welcome mat of a pitch," wrote journalist Greg Baum. "If there is an attack that could limit him, it is not this South African set, made threadbare by injury and left to cower before his broad and tireless blade.

"There is, of course, a record book that can confine him, but it will take much re-writing."

Clarke hit centuries in India and England the following year, but he would never be quite so dominant again. Instead of individual accolades, that period was beset by issues of team harmony and poor performance, as the Australians sank to a low on par with their 1980s mire in going without a win across nine straight Tests.

Revenge, when it happened, was sweet. In 2013-14, against England at home – and to the umbrage of some – Clarke took great delight in unleashing a reinvented Mitchell Johnson on England in a series of short, withering bursts. The outcome was 37 wickets for Johnson and a five-nil whitewash. At his warning to Jimmy Anderson that he should "get ready for a broken f-cking arm", Clarke's transition from brash young punk to captain courageous was, in the eyes of many Australian supporters, complete.

Yet his career was not. Though his back began to increasingly trouble him, Clarke's final 18 months on the international scene included three career-defining moments.

In March 2014, against South Africa in Cape Town, and with the No.1 Test ranking he had been chasing on the line, the skipper batted through the pain of a broken shoulder and repeated blows to his body from a short-pitched assault to make 161. It was Test hundred number 27 – equalling Allan Border – and given the wider context, the quality of the opposition, and the sheer determination of the performance, it was as good as anything that had come before.

"Michael Clarke showed a lot of guts," said Proteas pace-bowling coach Allan Donald. "He really did front-up today as a captain … he took a lot of blows for his team."

Nine months later, 33-year-old Clarke was faced with an altogether different challenge in the wake of the death of his close friend Phillip Hughes. Overcoming a hamstring injury and his ongoing back issues to take his place in the rescheduled first Test, just a week after delivering a eulogy at Hughes' funeral, Clarke was forced to retire hurt on 60 before returning to make a stirring 128 to help Australia to a series-opening win over India. It was his final Test on home soil.

Subsequent hamstring surgery meant the next great goal on Clarke's career bucket list – leading Australia to an ODI World Cup win at the end of that same home summer – could only be realised with, firstly, a rapid recovery.

Yet Clarke had prided himself – always – on the diligent management of his body. If fitness and rehab was the challenge, and the goal tantalising enough, he was confident he could make it happen.

"It’s going well; it's feeling really good," he said three weeks post-surgery. "As it is, I'm ahead of schedule and everyone is extremely pleased."

As it unfolded, Clarke missed the tournament opener but took his place thereafter. His 74 from 72 balls in the final against New Zealand, which piloted Australia to their target of 184, was reminiscent of his maiden ODI innings a dozen years earlier; composed, measured, and with eyes exclusively on the prize.

And so – in one-day cricket at least – he finished as he had begun. That night at the MCG he raised the World Cup trophy aloft as the winning captain, and there was a sense that his story as an Australian cricket was nearing its final chapter.

The 2015 UK tour that followed marked Clarke's leanest Ashes series. He was only 34 but he was hobbled by his back injury, and that Midas touch of yesteryear had clearly deserted him.

"I started this great game at six years of age so it's hard to walk away, there's no doubt about it," he said, "but I think it's the right time."

Almost a decade on, Clarke – Australia's fifth-highest runs scorer in all formats – walks into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame.

Seems the Pup has grown up.