The Ashes 2015: Knives are out for Michael Clarke as he tries to excuse the inexcusable

Rock bottom: Michael Clarke leads off his dejected side following their humiliation at Trent Bridge yesterday
LINDSEY PARNABY/AFP/Getty Images
Chris Stocks7 August 2015

When Michael Clarke walked into the squash court that doubles as a makeshift press conference room at Trent Bridge he looked like a man who knew the game was up.

Clarke’s Australia came into this Ashes as red-hot favourites to win their first series in England in 14 years.

Yet those dreams were left in tatters following a nightmare day in Nottingham that left Clarke’s captaincy on the brink.

England, having bowled out the tourists for 60 on an opening morning of this Fourth Test that beggared belief, closed 214 runs ahead on 274 for four, Joe Root following up Stuart Broad’s career-best eight for 15 with his eighth Test century.

Make no mistake, 18 months after capitulating so meekly during a 5-0 whitewash in Australia, England, already 2-1 up in this series following last week’s sensational win at Edgbaston, will regain the Ashes in the coming days.

It’s not a matter of if but when and it should happen in the next 48 hours.

Victory will be sweet for Alastair Cook given his England captaincy was put under intolerable strain in the aftermath of that horrific 2013-14 Ashes tour.

The Kevin Pietersen affair, set in motion by the star batsman’s sacking a month after his arrival back from Australia in early 2014, kicked off a toxic bout of bloodletting that, among other casualties, accounted for two coaches in Andy Flower and Peter Moores and a managing director of England cricket in Paul Downton.

England have only just recovered from that trauma and their experience will act as a harbinger of doom for the Australians. Clarke looks unlikely to survive beyond the end of this series and perhaps the only reason he will remain in charge for the final Test at The Kia Oval the week after next is because the sacking of a captain requires approval from the Cricket Australia board.

Talk amongst Australian journalists yesterday evening was the length of the knives they were going to use to skewer Clarke over the coming days.

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The man himself, sitting broken and bowed in that stark squash court at the back of the Trent Bridge pavilion, deserves credit for at least fronting up after such an horrendous day.

At 34 and with his difficult relationship with the Australian public now at an all-time low, Clarke did his best to excuse the inexcusable.

“That’s as tough batting conditions as I’ve faced in my career,” said the man whose average in this series now stands at 17 and who has not scored a century in any form of the game since returning from back and hamstring injuries during Australia’s World Cup campaign in February.

Clarke also refused to apologise for the shot that saw him caught at slip by Cook after a reckless swing outside off stump to Broad.

He said: “I watched guys around me get out trying to defend and I thought, like I’ve always said, the better the bowling the more aggressive you’ve got to be. You live by the sword, you die by the sword.”

Amid the excuses was praise for Broad. “He deserves a lot of credit for his execution,” said Clarke, the irony of his cliche of choice perhaps lost on a man who looked as chipper as someone who was about to take the long walk to the gallows himself.

Clarke’s probable international retirement — whether forced or of his own volition — will see Australia embark on their own rebuilding process.

The man who will head it up is Steve Smith, so impressive when he stood in as captain for the injured Clarke for the final three Tests of the last Australian summer against India. He is likely to be overseeing a much-changed team when Australia begin their next Test series in Bangladesh in October.

As well as Clarke, the 37-year-old opener Chris Rogers and the woefully out-of-form Adam Voges, who survived the axe for this match but at the age of 35 can surely not cling on any longer, are also likely to be moved on.

Others, too, will be looking over their shoulders given Ashes series defeats are often seen as watershed moments. The pain of failure for Australia is exacerbated by the fact they had such high hopes coming into this tour. They were overwhelming favourites to win their first away Ashes in 14 years, coming up as they were against an England side in upheaval after they had sacked coach Moores in May.

Smith’s pre-series comments summed up the mood.

“I can’t wait to get over there and play another Ashes against England after beating them so convincingly in Australia,” he said. “It’s going to be nice to go in their back yard. If we continue to play the way we have been playing over the last 12 to 18 months, I don’t think they’ll come close to us to be honest.”

But the wheel has turned quickly, England resurrected by new coach Trevor Bayliss, who to rub salt into Antipodean wounds is an Australian himself.

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