Then there is nerve pain down through my hamstrings, a pins-and-needles feeling, because the hamstrings are connected to the lower back. I get a burning sensation down the back of my right leg. When my back is feeling it, my hamstrings work overtime to compensate, and soon they’re gone too. The nerve damage echoes down my limbs. I lose sensitivity through my right shin, and my right big toe is almost totally numb. I lose strength and definition in my right calf.
Injections relieve the pain. I lose track of how many cortisone injections I receive to clear up the hamstring pain, the back pain, the glute pain, injections simply to neutralise the pain in the nerve root sleeve. When Kyly is about to have our baby daughter, I’m gleefully telling her all about the epidural she is going to have. I’m a veteran of anaesthesia.
Knowing I have this condition from such a young age, I prepare my mind to retire at 30. But I make it to that age, and soon after I turn 30 I am given the captaincy of Australia.
Later that year, 2011, I go with Alex to see a surgeon on the Gold Coast. My back and hamstrings are in a bad way, possibly related to the amount of family stress we’ve been through during the year, and it looks like I may not be able to go to Sri Lanka for the Test and one-day tour. The New South Wales team doctor, John Orchard, supports an idea that the surgeon puts forward, of an operation that goes in through my stomach and replaces the worst of the discs. He says that’s what will be needed if I injure it again. I resist, not wanting to risk the possible complications of such a major procedure. I am the captain of my country; I cannot risk six months out of the game, or even the possibility of it all ending. Now that I have made it to 30, I am not prepared to let go. There’s too much at stake.
Having refused the operation, I defy all expectations and get myself fit enough to play. From Sri Lanka onwards, I go out and have the best year of my life with the bat.
But it comes at a cost, which I’m just putting off day by day, pushing into the future.
I take anti-inflammatory tablets regularly, and often other painkillers as well. We try to use the least amount of medication. I know there’s a risk of developing a dependency on the painkillers, and John Orchard and Alex keep a close eye on everything that I’m taking. From 2012, when the pain begins to mount up and the injuries compound, John Orchard warns me that there’s a risk of tolerance – needing more and more to get the same effect. But if I don’t take the medication, I can’t get on the field. I say to John, ‘Let me take what I can to play the next game, and we’ll deal with it later.’
‘You might need to miss this series,’ he cautions.
‘Just keep me going for now, and if it blows out, it blows out.’
John suggests I save up those cortisone injections for special occasions, due to the limit on how much I can take before it loses its effectiveness, but my view is that every game for Australia is equally important. I don’t try to ‘pace out’ my career in that sense. I only think of getting through today, and I’m pig-headed about it.
In a Shield game against Victoria in 2014, I do my back on 70 and come off. The New South Wales physio says, ‘You can’t go back out there.’ I reply, ‘I’m going back out there.’ I can’t move, I can barely run – but the team needs me in this situation, and I go out and bat on.
It affects my game and my whole life, but I battle on to adjust to it. I lose the back-foot strength to get up on my right foot. By 2015, I am moving into the back-foot position against the short ball, but my weight is on my front foot, because I’ve lost the strength in my right calf. Finally, my performances reach breaking strain.
My mood suffers too. I am not trying to use it as an excuse: in fact the opposite. My view is that I made the choice to continue my career in this condition, so I can’t complain about the consequences, a lot of which are actually positive. People might wonder if I would have been a better cricketer without the bad back, but I see it the other way. Without needing to care for my back, I wouldn’t have trained as hard, wouldn’t have taken as good care of myself, wouldn’t have kept that focus. It might even have made me a better cricketer. But at the same time, anyone with serious back pain knows that it’s not just a localised feeling, it infiltrates your entire outlook on life and your relations with people. Mostly, what that means is that you lose patience quickly and you are terser than you would like.
It peaks at different times, and mostly I am able to disguise it in public. An exception is just before the 2013–14 Ashes series, when I give the captain’s press conference on the eve of the First Test at the Gabba. I’m annoyed that someone in the media has been having a go at me, and give cranky ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answers, leaving them in no doubt about my mood. What they don’t know is that at a net session at the Allan Border Field, I have had another painful occurrence and for a little while there has been some doubt over whether I will be able to play. My back is giving me hell, and Cricket Australia are asking me to make public appearances on days when I can barely even walk.
This is the whole cocktail: my back, my obsessiveness, all coming together. I’m a terrible waiter, and I am consumed by this First Test. We have lost three Ashes series in a row. We didn’t win a game in England. Last time Australia lost the Ashes at home, four years ago, the captain got sacked. In Brisbane I’m thinking, If we beat these guys once, we’ll win this series. I am so fired up. I don’t want to do any media or sponsor appearances, I just want to get my back right for this game.
Patience is not my strength, and time is crawling. I have been training so hard, working for six weeks on this plan of how I am going to deal with England’s bowlers, and now I am sick of talking. Usually I am expansive in these press conferences, but it’s all boiling up inside me. Behind every monosyllabic grunt, I’m thinking, I’ve got nothing else to say to you people, whatever I say you’re going to twist and turn it, you f—ing pricks who built me up in my first few years as the next Australian captain after one Test match. You pricks built me up, and now you take every possible opportunity to smash me.
Talk about not enjoying my journey as much as I could! When we win the match and the Ashes, I celebrate with a vengeance. Literally. I haven’t just got over the top of England, but all my enemies outside and all the demons inside. It’s a joyous celebration, of course, but it has an edge of F— you.
The anger is a symptom of the last phase of my life as an international cricketer. Other Australian captains have talked about it, and I know I’m not the first. The back and hamstring pain, which is either constant or constantly shadowing me for my whole career, piles in on top of all the other irritations in the last two or three years. I respond in the old way, obsessively. I still drive myself to do more. I know it’s stopped me from enjoying my journey as much as I could and should enjoy it, but inside the bubble, all I care about is sticking to my routines and fighting off my number one enemy, this physiological condition inside me.
During the 2015 Ashes tour, when I have failed with the bat in the first two Test matches, Darren Lehmann offers some wise counsel. ‘Take the next county game off,’ he says. I refuse. All through my career, I have answered every challenge by doing more, not less. I can’t let up. More has always worked for me. I play against Derbyshire, and fail in the first innings. I still want to play every game and train in every session, even when the life is ebbing out of my batting. I don’t know any other way.
Until I retire, when the fog lifts.
MY WORLD TEST 12
I‘m lucky to have been a cricketer in the current era. Aside from all the other joy the game has brought me, I have played with and against some of the greatest cricketers of all time. Now is my chance to be a selector again! This is a Test team of the best I have shared a cricket field with.
MICHAEL SLATER
My first cricket hero. Like so many kids growing up in the early 1990s, I fell in love with the refreshing, exuberant attitude Slats brought to the game. It’s easily forgotten in the Twenty20 era, when attack is much more the way of top-order batsmen, how Mic
hael Slater changed the opener’s role. He wasn’t a slogger, he was an orthodox, solid, tight, dependable opening batsman who was also looking for every opportunity to score runs. Cracking fours off Phil deFreitas to start the 1994–95 Ashes series is one of many great memories he left. If you look up ‘positive intent’ in the dictionary, you would find a picture of Slats. I didn’t play international cricket with him, but was lucky to share the field with him on a number of occasions for New South Wales.
MATTHEW HAYDEN
Having certain players in a team makes everyone walk taller. Matthew Hayden was like that in the Australian team I came into. Physically and psychologically, he could dominate the best attacks. He had a strong mental approach which he used to teach me many memorable lessons. He had been through his own struggles, and turned himself into one of the all-time greats. When I was struggling with my own form, he showed me a way forward.
RICKY PONTING
I have said a lot throughout this book about how much I admire Punter. He led Australian cricket from the front for so much of my career, it was hard to imagine life in the Test team after he retired in 2012. During my time, it was never possible to replace him. He was such a supreme batsman and mentor to young players, but if I could put his legacy in a nutshell, I would say that I most admired him for his performances with the bat when his country needed him most.
SACHIN TENDULKAR
The Indian master had the best batting technique I have ever seen. He played so straight, there were times when you thought you could bowl at him forever and never find a way through. His discipline to stop playing the cover drive while scoring a double-century at the SCG early in my career is something that left me awestruck. Sometimes you know that you have met your superior, and that was what Sachin was for me, and pretty much everyone who played with or against him.
BRIAN LARA
My other boyhood hero along with Michael Slater. Brian Lara had a glorious individual style, full of flourishes, beautiful to watch. He also had the mental toughness to score runs in any conditions, against the best bowling, all around the world. I came to value that most highly of all: his determination and his versatility. I only played against him in the last years of his career, but he had been my idol since I was a little boy. I still pinch myself to think that he was kind and generous enough to offer me the hand of friendship.
JACQUES KALLIS
For the all-rounder’s position, I was tempted to pick Andrew Flintoff, the most difficult bowler I faced in Test cricket and an excellent middle-order batsman. But seriously? Jacques Kallis ended his career with a better batting average than Sachin Tendulkar and more wickets than Brett Lee. He took more catches than Mark Waugh. He batted number three and four, and bowled with the new ball, old ball, second new ball, whatever his team needed. The complete cricketer, he could not be left out of any World Test 12.
ADAM GILCHRIST
I saw a lot of great wicketkeeper-batsmen – M.S. Dhoni, Kumar Sangakkara, A.B. de Villiers, Brad Haddin and Brendon McCullum to name a few – but Gilly topped them all. Such a destructive batsman, he was a match-winner for Australia time after time. Early in my career, I was fortunate to have the best seat in the house, being up the other end during some big partnerships with him. Because his batting revolutionised the game and drew all the attention, people underrated him as a wicketkeeper, and he was also the best vice-captain I ever knew.
MITCHELL JOHNSON
The greatest athlete I played with. Give him a football, put him in the gym, and he’ll achieve freakish things. He will win swimming races and hundred metre sprints, thrash you at tennis, and don’t even mention table tennis – he is a prodigy. As cricketers, we went to the Australian Cricket Academy together and shared the field for much of our careers. He scored Test centuries and took many great catches, as well as being a great all-round fielder. He was a very quiet individual, but when he walked on the field he gave everything. His bowling, at its best, was terrifying, unplayable. We became closer as we got older, and he hit his peak when his efforts did so much to lift us to world number one after the 2013–14 Ashes and our away win over South Africa. I hope I got the best out of him as captain. I always knew how important he was to our success, and let him know how much we all valued him.
SHANE WARNE (Captain)
Enough said. It doesn’t take me to say he was the greatest spin bowler of all time. Every respected poll of cricketers and cricket watchers would say the same. But I also think he was the best captain Australia never had. His insight into the game, from every aspect – tactical, physical, psychological – is second to none. He was a superb mentor and man-manager too. I count myself lucky to have had the benefit of his friendship and his cricket wisdom since the early days of my career.
DALE STEYN
I admired the way the South African spearhead grew through his career. He was extremely fast and hostile, but developed great control and the intelligence to bowl differently in different conditions. As skilful with reverse swing as anyone, he could also crank it up to over 150 km/h. We had some great battles on the field as we gave everything to get our countries on top. I value the runs I scored against him more highly than any others.
GLENN MCGRATH
The best fast bowler I’ve ever played with or against. Not the fastest, but definitely one of the smartest and most skilful. He was also a great friend to me and I’ll never forget the intelligence he offered. When he bowled at me in the nets, I asked him to try to get me out, and he told me what he was trying. My cricket education went on a steep upward curve whenever he shared his knowledge. I feel sorry for any team who had to bat against Australia when McGrath and Warne were bowling.
MUTTIAH MURALITHARAN (Twelfth Man)
His tally of 800 Test wickets, a world record, speaks for itself. He was a tough competitor who never let up. When conditions were hard for him he was tight and persistent. When they favoured him, he was a nightmare. I loved facing spin and that was a strength of my game, but Murali challenged my skills to the utmost with every ball he bowled.
CAREER RECORDS
OVERVIEW
PROFILE
Full name:
Michael John Clarke
Born:
2 April 1981
Height:
178 cm (5 foot 10 inches)
Batting:
Right-hand batsman
Bowling:
Slow left-arm orthodox
Nicknames:
Pup, Clarkey
Role:
Middle-order batsman Australian captain
Test cap no:
389
ODI cap no:
149
ODI shirt no:
23
DOMESTIC TEAMS
New South Wales (2000–2016)
Hampshire (2004)
Pune Warriors India (2012–2013)
Kowloon Cantons (2016)
STATISTICS LEGEND
A
Played Away (opposition home ground)
Ave
Average
BBI
Best Bowling Innings
BF
Balls faced
Ct
Catches
D
Drawn
DNB
Did Not Bat
DNP
Did Not Play
Econ
Economy Rate
H
Played at Home
HS
High Score
Inn
Innings
L
Lost
Mat
Matches
N
Played at a Neutral Ground
NO or *
Not Out
NR
No Result
P
Played
Runs
Batting – runs scored; Bowling – runs conceded
SR
Strike Rate
T
Tied
W
Won<
br />
Wkts
Wickets taken
W/L
Win/Loss ratio
4s
Number of 4s scored
4w
Four wickets taken in an innings
6s
Number of 6s scored
5w
Five wickets taken in an innings
50
Number of half-centuries (50-plus but fewer than 100 runs) scored
100
Number of centuries (100-plus runs) scored
%D
Percentage Drawn
%L
Percentage Lost
%W
Percentage Won
DEBUTS & LAST MATCHES
TYPE
DEBUT
LAST MATCH
First-class
New South Wales v Tasmania at Sydney, 9 December 1999
Australia v England at The Oval, 20-23 August 2015
ODI
Australia v England at Adelaide, 19 January 2003
Australia v New Zealand at Melbourne, 29 March 2015
My Story Page 31