Michael Clarke’s chances of leading Australia in their home World Cup campaign appear extremely slim after Cricket Australia confirmed he would have surgery on his injured right hamstring on Tuesday.
Clarke suffered the injury on the fifth day of the Adelaide Test, and scans have revealed a tear and what CA has described as “substantial damage to a key part of the hamstring tendon”. Steven Smith will captain Australia for the remainder of the Test series against India but the selectors might also be forced to decide on a new captain for the World Cup as well.
For major hamstring surgery, recovery is usually a matter of months rather than weeks, and Australia’s first match of the World Cup is in less than two months. More likely than Clarke rushing back for that campaign is that the Australians will aim to have him available for the Test tour of the West Indies in June, which is followed by the Ashes tour of England.
“Michael was assessed by a surgeon in Melbourne early this evening and will be undergoing surgery tomorrow to repair his injured right hamstring,” Australian team doctor Peter Brukner said.
“Whilst surgery is not always required with hamstring injuries, Michael has substantial damage to a key part of the hamstring tendon and it was felt the best course of action was to surgically repair the damaged area. His recovery and the timing of his return to play will be dependent on the surgeon’s advice and how well he recovers in the coming weeks.”
After suffering the injury in Adelaide, a despondent Clarke conceded that he might have to consider his cricket future given the recurring nature of his injuries, and he admitted that he might have played his last game for Australia. However, writing in his column for Tuesday’s News Ltd newspapers, Clarke confirmed that he still had the desire to return and play for his country again.
“I will be going under the knife today so that I can get back on the park as soon as possible,” Clarke wrote. “I will be doing everything in my powers to get back doing what I love: playing cricket for Australia.”
Clarke has struggled with a chronic back problem for more than a decade and it is related to the hamstring issues that have troubled him in recent times. He injured his left hamstring at Australia’s first training session in Harare in August ahead of their one-day tri-series and reinjured it when he played his first game of that tournament against Zimbabwe.
Although Clarke was able to get through the Test series against Pakistan in the UAE, he again injured his left hamstring in Australia’s first home ODI of the summer, against South Africa in Perth. The latest injury, which requires surgery, is to his other hamstring.
If Clarke is unavailable for the World Cup, the ODI vice-captain George Bailey would be the logical stand-in to lead the side, although Bailey’s own recent ODI form has been lean compared to that of Smith. On Monday the team performance manager Pat Howard said that Smith’s appointment as vice-captain to Clarke was only for Test cricket at this stage.
“We specifically quarantined that, knowing where Michael sits,” Howard said of the World Cup. “The next 24 to 48 hours will give us far better guidance on that process. But I think George Bailey has done a fantastic job. We’re No.1 in the world. He’s led the last two series so all that was discussed but at the moment … this is around the Test captaincy and Steve taking over for the next three Tests.”
