Michael Clarke happy over batting form as captain

Michael Clarke happy over batting form as captain

Australia’s Test and One Day International (ODI) skipper Michael Clarke was happy that leading the side did not affect his batting, instead he was improving day by day.

Clarke scored a career best 329-run knock against India in the second Test of the four match series, which helped the team win by an innings and 68 runs.

Prior to this, the 30-year-old player did not even have a double-ton in the longest version of the game. The Sydney Test against India was Clarke’s 10th as captain and he has already scored four tons during this time period.

"It’s nice to be getting some results now and it’s even more special being captain," Clarke said. "There’s always that stigma that the extra responsibility can affect your batting, so I’m pleased that it hasn’t. But I don’t feel any different, to be
honest. I feel I’m doing the hard work and it’s nice to see some results but I know things change quickly."

The veteran cricketer further went onto add, "I think my game is continuing to improve. I hope it is. I think results have probably shown me that it is. I don’t feel I’ve changed much since becoming captain. I feel I’m still able to do the work [on
my batting] that I need to do in the nets, to prepare and improve on my weaknesses. That’s what I’ve tried to do over the last two years."

Despite being in such good form, the Australian skipper believes he needs to keep scoring runs with consistency. He is looking forward to make a big one on the challenging Perth wicket.

However, things will not be easy for the batters in WACA, where the ball will bounce a lot and the bowlers will get a lot more pace than anywhere else in Australia.

This will be a bigger concern for India than it will be for the hosts. The Men in Blue have an excellent batting line up, but it only clicks when the pitches are slow.

India have been beaten in the first two matches of the series and will need a miracle to win the Perth Test. Their team will most probably be unable to make an improvement, but MS Dhoni will hope that the Aussies play even worse than his side.

However, the biggest question for the Indian skipper will be whether any team can play worse than India at the moment?

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Posted by Waqar Masood on Jan 12 2012. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry