Michael Clarke’s egocentric conduct creates push for Steve Smith as captain, writes Rebecca Wilson

MICHAEL Clarke’s egocentric campaign to become captain again has irritated the Australian cricket team, writes Rebecca Wilson.

MICHAEL Clarke is on a mission and it is a very public one.

His campaign to regain the Australian captaincy includes daily updates from close friends on his hamstring injury, photo opportunities at intensive training sessions and provocative statements to friendly media that he intends to play on until 2020.

His best mate, Shane Warne, engineered Clarke’s appearance as a commentator on Channel Nine during the Indian Test series which so incensed several of his teammates that they have shut the door on their former captain.

Insiders watched on with anguish as Clarke queried decisions, challenged the role of the coach and went public with his opinions on teammates.

It rankled with Cricket Australia that they were powerless to stop his appearances, putting another doubt in their minds about Clarke’s future.

Moreover, question marks have been raised in board and Cricket Australia circles about the people with whom Clarke surrounds himself. They liken him to a rock star and believe his single minded rebellion against the establishment is not in the best interests of the sport.

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While there is no dispute about the way Clarke handled himself during the Phil Hughes tragedy, leading from the front and exhibiting humility and maturity few had foreseen, the cracks in Australian cricket over his behaviour in recent times have reappeared in the weeks since Hughes’ funeral.

Those rifts have spread to the player group, most of whom are now privately withdrawing their support for Clarke’s captaincy. While chief of selectors Rod Marsh has waged war against Clarke, nobody quite expected the backlash to extend to the Cricket Australia board, the coach and the players.

In short, Clarke has cooked his goose. The cricket media, those who live and travel every second with the team, have been reluctant to outline the full extent of the Clarke drama. They hint at it, they circle it but none of them wants to be the villain who declares the whole truth.

The dragged out, and it must be said egocentric, campaign to become Australian cricket captain again has so irritated the close knit Australian cricket team that the push to have Steve Smith appointed as skipper sooner rather than later has gathered huge momentum in recent weeks.

The arguments to retain Clarke were being voiced loudly several weeks ago. I was one of the vocal Clarke supporters but that was before any of us had been afforded a glimpse at the level of maturity and aplomb with which Smith took the captaincy.

The Clarke support base has withered somewhat with every run that Smith has scored. Even if Clarke does prove his fitness by the imposed February deadline, there is a strong case for including him as a batsman without the captaincy role.

While Ricky Ponting accepted his lot, Clarke desperately wants to remain as captain and batsman. One without the other is not acceptable to him.

Smith is ready to captain in both forms of the game. He has no injury concerns and engenders a unified feeling within the team. Smith enjoys his relationship with coach Darren Lehmann, while Clarke openly questioned the coach’s role during his commentary stint.

At 25, the knockabout Smith’s persona is quite the opposite of Clarke’s, whose glamorous lifestyle has ruffled more than a few feathers within the sport. Smith puts team above all else and fits the part as an old-fashioned backyard barbecue Aussie cricketer.

Somehow, you can’t see Steve Smith on James Packer’s yacht or dancing his way through a Melbourne nightclub with Warne by his side.

While Clarke captained from the front with his batting and aggressive style, his petulance over the deadline has been disappointing.

He has made it clear, either openly or through those same close mates, that he believes he should be the one who decides when he returns to play. The the reality of professional team sport is that injury deadlines must be set, but Clarke believes the rules should be different for him.

The big issue, of course is what happens to the divisiveness and derision if Clarke is reinstated. When most of the playing group is slowly turning against him, the question is whether Clarke can repair the damage.

Then, of course, there is that hamstring. Can Australian cricket tolerate several years of hand-wringing every time Clarke goes out to bat? The selectors do not believe it can.

Smith has been gracious in every word he has uttered about Clarke, He is happy to wait his turn, content to allow his time to come. Somehow, I don’t think it will be Smith’s call. The drums are getting louder and Michael Clarke may be powerless to stop the new kid rolling into town.

THE decision handed down by the Federal Court of Appeal rejecting James Hird’s claims that the ASADA investigation into the Essendon doping scandal was invalid will now surely see a change of attitude from the club bosses who must now deal with the fall out from Hird’s arrogance in pursuing further court action.

ASADA now has the all clear to continue its action against the players for what they believe was a systemic doping program at the club in the 2012 season. Just what penalties the players will face should at least become apparent soon given that the Bombers have now exhausted all legal action in their defence of the indefensible.

Hird keeps his job for now but his position at the club is once again under the microscope. He should not be in charge of the same player group for which he was responsible in 2012.

ANOTHER day, another disappointment for the National Rugby League.

Dave Smith’s decision (or it could have been one of his consultants) to launch the season in New Zealand in January has senior club figures privately fuming about the timing and tone of the event.

Instead of using superstars Johnathan Thurston and Greg Inglis as the stars of the show, Smith himself performed the job. Already under fire for launching his season in New Zealand, Smith added insult to injury by using the Nines as his launch pad in a cluttered schedule of summer sport in Australia.

Smith is being advised by a huge consultancy called Crosby Textor, which is headed up by Mark Textor, one of the blokes who has been handing Tony Abbott brilliant advice in recent months. Textor is a kingmaker who charges a king’s ransom. The NRL has been paying the firm for, in their words, “help with research from time to time”. Focus groups, research, surveys. Alarm bells are ringing loud with the mere mention of those words.

No other professional sport in the world has a season that lasts ten months and no winter code in Australia has ever launched its season in the middle of the Australian Open tennis, the One Day series and the Asian Cup final week.

Club bosses are wondering when anyone at the NRL or at the Commission going to start querying the cost of stables of consultants, executives and extremely expensive events like the one in Auckland for 500 people? One wondered out loud: “Why can’t we launch our season at the start of the real season?”

The game is the star. The players are the stars. One would venture a big opportunity has been lost this week in New Zealand.

Originally published as Michael Clarke’s egocentric conduct creates push for Steve Smith as captain, writes Rebecca Wilson