Beyond the baggy green
Michael Clarke tells Kate Waterhouse about life after being the Australian cricket captain.
CRICKETER Michael Clarke captained the Australian cricket team from 2008 to 2015. He became the 12th Australian to score a century in his Test debut, was awarded the prestigious Allan Border Medal and in 2013 was named the International Cricket Council’s Cricketer of the Year.
Clarke, 34, talks about the challenges of being an Australian cricket captain, what he has next in the pipeline and the best advice he ever received from West Indies great Brian Lara.
I’m currently commentating fulltime, so my day-to-day schedule is pretty full on. I get up at 5.30am and go do a session in the gym for an hour, I then Facetime my daughter, have breakfast, then off to the ground to commentate. I wrap up commentating around 6pm, then head out to dinner with the boys.
Not at all. My dream as a 6-year-old boy was to play cricket for Australia, but I never dreamt of captaining our country. In saying that, it was an absolute honour and privilege to be the 43rd Australian Test captain.
I think spending time away from your family is always hard, with the way tours are set up now you travel for 10 months of the year. And I think as any leader does in sport or business, when your team doesn’t perform, you take it extremely personal.
None whatsoever. I have learnt a lot of life lessons along my journey so far, but I’m very happy with what I have been lucky enough to achieve.
I would hate to know. That’s why I will always be so grateful to the game of cricket. It has given me everything. that difficulties and delays quite impossible to foresee are ahead… You can only see one thing clearly, and that is your goal! Form a mental vision of that and cling to it through thick and thin. ever happened to me, I wanted her to know who her father was, what I stood for and what my values were. I wanted her to hear about my life from me and not what she might have heard or read in a paper/magazine.
Six months. It was a lot of fun and nice to finally be able to be completely open and honest.
Yes it was, it was nice to be able to sit down and reflect on my life. The past 35 years have been an amazing ride. Plenty of highs and a few lows. Fashion allows you to show your own individual style. I believe people should be very proud of who they are and fashion allows them to show that.
Not at all. I played for a long time and feel that I retired at the right time as I amvery happy with the career that I had fulfilled. I thought I achieved everything I could and now I amable to talk about the game, and help the viewers get a closer perspective of what it’s like out there in the middle.
Being honest and calling it how you see it is not hard at all. I always try to be as constructive as I can be, as I remember how hard the game was at the highest level.
Yes I will be. I will have Christmas Day at home with Kyly, Kelsey Lee and my family but will fly to Melbourne that night in preparation for the Boxing Day Test match.
Seeing her every morning when she wakes up with a smile on her face and giving her a kiss good night before she goes to sleep, and I love watching her grow and learn new things. She is just such a happy, vibrant little girl. She has me wrapped around her finger already.
I have my cricket academy in Sydney, which is doing really well, and now with more time on my hands I amable to be more involved, which is great. I amalso investing a lot of time into the digital side of my business. I will also keep commentating with the Nine team, and being an ambassador for the amazing companies that I amlucky enough to be associated with keeps me nice and busy. – Fairfax ● Michael Clarke will be part of the Channel 9 commentary team covering Sunday’s first Chappell-Hadlee encounter between Australia and New Zealand in Sydney. Coverage begins at 4.18pm on Sky Sport 1.