My Story Read online

  About My Story

  HE WAS THE GREATEST BATSMAN of his generation and, as captain, possessed the sharpest tactical mind in the game.

  Bursting onto the scene in 2004 with a Test century on debut, Michael Clarke was Australian cricket’s golden boy. And the batting prodigy they nicknamed ‘Pup’ certainly fulfilled his destiny in a stellar 11-year international career of 115 Tests, 8643 runs and 28 centuries.

  Clarke’s rollercoaster four-year reign as Test captain was marked as much by bravery as brilliance – a 5–0 whitewash of England in 2013–14, the 2015 World Cup triumph, and a ten-hour unbeaten 161, batting with a broken shoulder to lead Australia back to the #1 world ranking in 2014.

  Yet Michael Clarke also sparked fiercer debate than any other Australian sports star.

  For a decade his personal life, career fortunes and controversies – real or imagined – were splashed across front pages and scrutinised. Was he simply a hard-working, western suburbs kid living every Aussie boy’s dream? Or a 21st century cricketer mired in all the trappings of celebrity?

  In the echo chamber of social media, the truth about Michael Clarke was warped, then lost. Clarke’s enigma deepened but he kept his mouth shut and his dignity intact, knowing the chance to tell his extraordinary story would finally come. And now it has.

  My Story is the real Michael Clarke, standing up and speaking out for the first time.

  Bucking the conventions of traditional biography to go hard at the big issues, Clarke speaks fearlessly and poignantly about the scandals, rumours and explosive moments of his life; revealing the amazing truths, private pain and personal triumphs that no one realised.

  It’s the incredible story of a remarkable Australian you never really knew. Until now.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About My Story

  Epigraph

  Foreword

  1 The Day Life Changed

  2 The Loving Of Liverpool

  3 The Pup

  4 The Baggy Green

  5 Dropped

  6 Look At the Sun, Not the Rain

  7 Deputy

  8 Symmo

  9 The Gentleman’s Game

  10 The Feud That Wasn’t

  11 England

  12 Chasing the Mirage

  13 The Twenty20 Revolution

  14 Driving the Bus

  15 Captains and Coaches

  16 The Scapegoat

  17 The Arts And Crafts of Captaincy

  18 Hughesy

  19 Fear

  20 Obsessive and Compulsive

  My World Test 12

  Career Records

  Images

  Acknowledgements

  Index

  About Michael Clarke

  Also by Michael Clarke

  Copyright page

  Fight one more round. When your feet are so tired you have to shuffle back to the centre of the ring, fight one more round. When your arms are so tired that you can hardly lift your hands to come on guard, fight one more round. When your nose is bleeding and your eyes are black and you are so tired you wish your opponent would crack you one on the jaw and put you to sleep, fight one more round – remembering that the man who always fights one more round is never whipped.

  – James ‘Gentleman Jim’ Corbett

  Bare-knuckle Heavyweight Champion 1882–1892

  FOREWORD

  by Brian Lara

  Sometimes in life you happen upon a ‘game changer’, a person or thing that can dramatically change the course of events, or alter perceptions and outcomes. Meeting Michael Clarke, getting to know him and witnessing his achievements on and off the field of play, was one of those game changers for me.

  Quietly confident while possessing a demeanour and presence that commanded notice and respect, he made a vivid impression on our first encounter. I had just arrived in Guyana for the start of the 2003 West Indies versus Australia series and was looking for the first available car from the airport into Georgetown. With permission, I jumped into the back seat of a taxi carrying one other passenger. Immediately, I thought Australian journalist . . . here we go. I expected a long trip to the hotel with endless questions. I enquired, but the young man replied, ‘No, I am Michael Clarke, I’m replacing Damien Martyn. Nice to meet you, Mr Lara.’ I shook his outstretched hand and from that point onwards, hearing from Michael has been hearing from a friend.

  Michael and I became close, perhaps even to the chagrin of his Australian teammates who may have felt that such a closeness with an opponent was unhealthy. Michael related how much he enjoyed watching me play during his youthful days, and I saw his as a very special talent coming out of Australia. He absolutely loved his cricket and dreamed of playing at the highest level for his country. This he did with great success and flair. In my mind, what set him apart was his sponge-like outlook and keenness to listen and learn from whomever could make him a better cricketer.

  One memory which stands out is when, after a win by Australia over the West Indies in Hobart, my teammates and I went to the Australian dressing room to offer congratulations and have the usual after-match drink with the opposition. I moved around the room and eventually settled next to Michael. One by one, all the young Australian players moved in on our conversation with that same willingness to learn that Michael had when we first met. Michael already knew he was dropped for the next Test match, but he never allowed that disappointment to spoil the atmosphere created in that moment. I knew then the manner of man that Michael is and the high regard and openness he had for our friendship.

  Michael became a fierce competitor on the field of play, the only way you should be when competing for your country. As a captain, Michael led by example on and off the field. One could look at all the players on the field, and picking Michael as the leader was a simple task. His antics, aptitude and confidence made him stand out among his peers.

  As a cricketer, one lives a hectic, high-energy and sometimes overwhelming life, and balancing one’s personal and professional life is not always easy. But Michael achieved this balance with what always seemed to be a calm and happy ease. He has left a very strong legacy in the cricketing world. Here is a man who grew up watching his countrymen become the number one team in the world, dominating the opposition at home and away. He dreamed about playing with and against his childhood heroes, which he did with great accomplishment. He led his country bravely and at all times showed great sportsmanship.

  ‘Pups!’ Sir Vivian Richards would shout when he wanted my attention. Today I say to you, Pup, that you have shown the world your true self: strong, committed, confident, fearless, honest, loyal to your family and many more great character traits; but most importantly to me and many others, a true friend. I couldn’t be prouder of you or happier for you. This book is a wonderful testament to your life thus far, but remember, my friend, your journey continues. I am confident that you will continue to be a game changer and I look forward to witnessing it.

  1

  THE DAY LIFE CHANGED

  It’s a beautiful morning for cricket: today is the semi-final of the 2007 World Cup and we are in St Lucia to play South Africa. Although we have had an unbeaten run in the tournament so far, this is knock-out time, and the whole world knows how much the Proteas and their countrymen want a World Cup.

  A light sea breeze is blowing through the window of my hotel room. I’m starting to get my head around today’s game when my mobile phone rings. The screen says it’s an overseas call.

  My sister Leanne is speaking before I can open my mouth.

  ‘It’s Dad,’ she says. She’s in tears. Her words come out in a rush. ‘He and Mum wanted to wait until the end of the World Cup before telling you, but I have to tell you now. He’s been diagnosed with cancer. He’s having more sc
ans and going in for chemo and radiation.’

  For what seems like a long time, I can’t speak. My throat has gone tight and dry, and my eyes have welled up. I’m on my feet. My head is light. Leanne gives me more details: during dinner a few nights ago, Dad collapsed in so much pain that Mum and Leanne thought he was having a heart attack. He went to hospital for tests, and the diagnosis has come in today. I can only just hear her through the beating of blood in my ears. She says he has a number of cancers throughout his upper body.

  Finally I can speak. ‘I’m coming straight home.’

  ‘No, no, please don’t,’ Leanne says. ‘They really don’t want you to come back. There’s nothing you can do right now. Play the rest of the World Cup.’

  The World Cup? A minute ago, it was all I was thinking about: my first World Cup. Now, it seems to have zoomed off, over the horizon. It’s vanished. Everything, as it existed until a minute ago, has fallen out of my head. Dad has cancer. I have two lives: there is the life I lived up until today, and a different life that is about to begin.

  2

  THE LOVING OF LIVERPOOL

  Will he ever come home?

  I am six years old and sitting on the kerb outside our house in Leitz Street, Liverpool. My cricket bat is between my knees and I am spinning a tennis ball from hand to hand. There are so many places to set up a game – number-one pitch on the front yard, number-two pitch up the driveway and into the garage, number-three pitch in the cul-de-sac with the telegraph pole as the stumps – but I have no one to play with. Leanne is at after-school sport, so I can’t nag her to throw balls to me. It feels like I’ve been sitting on this kerb forever.

  My dad is a hard-working man. Even though I am only little, I have some sense of that. He works with his hands, and he believes in doing things himself. Soon after I was born, he gave up an opportunity to play grade cricket for Western Suburbs because he was converting the two-bedroom weatherboard house on this corner block into a more substantial brick dwelling with three bedrooms. With a wife and two young kids, cricket had to take a back seat. I was a toddler at the time, and would sit all day watching the workmen. At night, after they had left their gear, I would get on the job myself. Mum and Dad would be sitting in the kitchen unwinding, and from the next room there’d be a Bang! Bang! Bang! It was just me, hoeing into the walls with one of the workmen’s hammers. They always say, ‘Michael’s a very, very active boy.’ And roll their eyes.

  Finally, Dad’s truck swings around the corner and into the driveway. His business is to deliver bricks. His truck is a hand-wagon rather than a crane-wagon, which means he loads and unloads his capacity of two thousand bricks, by hand, on three delivery runs a day. That means he has shifted twelve thousand bricks with his bare hands since I last saw him this morning.

  Doesn’t matter: it’s cricket time! I get up and run over, thrusting the ball at him. He says he wants to go inside and sit down with a cold drink, but I won’t let him rest. Soon I have him under-arming the tennis ball. I’m whacking it everywhere. Dad has to troop off into the bushes or across the road to fetch it. He’s feeling the effects of his day at work, but I’m at him to bowl more balls. More and more and more.

  ‘I want to bat like you,’ I say. I am a left-hander and, for a brief time, when I’m very young, I bat with my strong hand on the bottom. But I want to be like Dad, who’s a right-handed batsman.

  ‘Sure. All you have to do is stand on the other side of the bat.’

  It’s that simple. I become a right-handed batsman, with my strong hand on top. Little do I know it, but I’ve done the same switch as future team-mates and opponents such as Brian Lara, Adam Gilchrist, Mike Hussey, Marcus North, David Warner and a host of others who bat with their stronger hand on top. I don’t know what their reasons are for holding the bat the way they do, but mine is the same that drives everything I do at this age: I want to be like my Dad.

  ‘And you’ve got to stop hitting them everywhere,’ he says. ‘I can’t keep playing if you’re going to make me chase balls all over the place.’

  ‘I can’t stop hitting them,’ I say. What’s the point if you can’t bash the ball as far as you can?

  ‘You will,’ Dad says quietly, with his usual don’t-argue firmness. ‘You have to block the first fifty balls before you begin belting them.’

  Okay! That’s fifty more balls he’s committed to throwing at me! So I count them aloud. ‘One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . .’ It’s like a countdown for Dad, having me block ball after ball before he has to start chasing. Once I get to fifty, I can swing hard again. Dad’s off hunting in the bushes, his back stiff and his legs creaking from those twelve thousand bricks.

  ‘All right,’ he says a few sessions later. ‘I can’t take this. You have to block one hundred balls before you start belting them.’

  ‘One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . .’

  And on it goes, all the way to one hundred. By the time I’m ready to play real cricket, my batting is based on the defensive technique from all that blocking. Dad has shown me the fundamentals of forward and backward defence, the story of an innings: it always begins with a solid stint of defence. I learn from the earliest days to build an innings, like Dad built this house, from the ground up. For me, defence has a different purpose – it’s the only way I can keep Dad bowling to me.

  When I get on a real cricket field at last, this grounding comes in more than handy. I’m a slight and skinny seven-year-old when Dad and I wander down to Schell Park, a few short blocks from home. It’s a typical western suburbs junior sports ground, big and dry and open with a fringe of gum trees and a low brick toilet block where you can get changed and watch from the shade. There’s a synthetic pitch in the middle and a basic pair of cricket nets at one end where the under-10s for the local club, Woodlands Park, are practising. Leanne already plays netball and softball for the club. I’ve been playing tee-ball for a couple of years, but am desperate to get out and play on a real cricket pitch, facing real bowlers, just like Dad. He’s not so sure I’m strong enough to play with ten-year-olds.

  ‘Hey, Les!’

  It’s Jason Willmont, coach of the Woodlands Park under-10s. He’s seen me looking longingly at the boys in the nets with my bat. At a recent presentation at Gunnamatta Park, he told Dad I should be given a go at real cricket.

  ‘Why not let him have a hit with the boys?’ Jason says now.

  I look up at Dad. I’m begging him with my eyes.

  ‘No, he’s too young,’ Dad says. ‘He can’t even bowl a ball the length of the pitch. He’ll struggle against those boys.’

  With the ball in my hand, I run over to the centre wicket. I sprint in as fast as I can and hurl the ball, left-arm quick, and it makes it all the way to the other end and stays on the pitch. Jason – with a lot of help from me – persuades Dad to give way. To my delight, I get to play the whole under-10s season. I score a total of 17 runs in a lot of innings, but the bigger boys only get me out once. Those defensive sessions to save Dad’s back have set me up.

  This is how competitive cricket starts for me, and I guess this is the time I set my eager foot on the path that will lead to playing for Australia. But in my world, there’s not really a road or a link from Schell Park to the cricket I see on television. We don’t have the money to go to watch a Test match at the Sydney Cricket Ground. What my world consists of is the enchanted circle around our house, encompassing Schell Park and Marsden Public School, and the people who dominate it, my heroes, are among my family and my friends. Anything that exists on the other side of Elizabeth Drive, the big main road cutting through our suburb, exists only on TV.

  Our world gives us everything we’ll ever need. Cricket is part of that world, but as a boy I never see myself leaving Liverpool. Where else would I want to be?

  The centre of that world is our house, which has been converted and extended to the comfortable sandstock-brick three-bedroom structure that Mum and Dad envisaged around the time of my birth. Leanne and I
are the type of kids who usually invite our friends to our place more than going to theirs; if a parent wants to find one of their kids, they only have to come over to the Clarkes’.

  I’m a fidgety ball of nervous energy. I have the bedroom near the front door, and go to bed each night with the fear that if someone is going to break in, they’ll come to my room first. I sleep with my cricket bat, partly because I love it but also to defend myself from an intruder. A lot of the time, I’ll sneak into Leanne’s room and sleep top-to-tail in her bed. When she goes away for a night or two on a school camp, I’ll sleep in her room. I miss her, and I don’t want to be near the front door. The cricket bat is with me night and day.

  This has been Mum and Dad’s house more or less since they married. They met, funnily enough, through cricket. Dad was born in Canberra, but after his father passed away when Dad was five, his mother remarried and they moved to Sydney, where Dad went to Ashfield Boys’ High in the western suburbs. He didn’t like the city and, desperate to get away from school, he decided, in year 8, to join the navy. He fudged his medical, concealing the fact that he had bad hearing, and signed the recruitment papers against his mother’s wishes. As a 16-year-old, he was sent to the HMAS Leeuwin naval base in Western Australia. He wanted to get out into the world and have his own adventures.

  Sport was a big part of Dad’s life, and he got into cricket and rugby union teams on the base. As a young man he was shorter and stockier than me, and by all accounts he had a good mix of talent and positive intent in every sport he played. With his cricket, he says his downfall was over-aggression. In rugby, it was someone else’s aggression. In a trial for the Combined Services team, playing for the Navy against the Army, he got kicked in the side of the head. A perforated eardrum spelt the end of Dad’s navy career.

  Discharged on medical grounds, he went back to Sydney, where he got a job as a process worker at Parsons Pumps in Enfield. When another company offered him a job, Parsons counter-offered with an apprenticeship as a fitter and turner. He ended up working there for nine years.