Michael Clarke claims captaincy has helped him improve batting

Michael Clarke claims captaincy has helped him improve batting

Australia’s skipper Michael Clarke has claimed that leading the side has helped him blossom as a batsman. He shared these views after capping the Alan Border medal for the third year in a row.

"I think the added responsibility of captaining the team has probably made me stand up and lead from the front," Clarke said. "People see the rewards when you stand up on the big stage, they don’t see the hard work you do off the field. When you have
the chance to go and bat for Australia in the middle of the SCG or the Adelaide Oval, that’s the fun part, that’s the part where you just walk out and enjoy yourself because the hard work has been done."

The veteran batsman has been leading the team well and is yet to be defeated in any series until now. He started off his campaign after the ICC World Cup 2011, when Ricky Ponting stepped down from captaincy.

Since then, Clarke has managed to beat Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India and levelled series against South Africa and New Zealand.

Despite being undefeated until now, the Aussie skipper said that things could have been better for him and the team.

"I think it could have gone better, definitely," Clarke said of his first year as captain. "I think over the past 12 months we’ve played some really good cricket but there’s been some patches that we’d like to forget as well. I think we’re heading
in the right direction as a team. When you’re the No.1 one-day team in the world it’s really hard to stay on top of your game all the time; you have to keep finding new things, new ways to improve. You have to keep working hard, you can’t take anything for
granted. Getting to the top of the tree is very hard but staying there is even harder."

Australia are currently hosting India and Sri Lanka in a triangular One Day International (ODI) series. They have already qualified for the final and Clarke will be hoping to beat his opponents.

At the moment, it seems that Sri Lanka are the other team which will face the hosts in the final. However, anything can happen in cricket, so we will have to wait and see the outcome of the remaining games.

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Posted by Waqar Masood on Feb 27 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