Clarke confident of making India tour

Sep 19, 2013

Tags:

Michael Clarke_Column_Britain Cricket Engla_Kand(8)_0_0_0.jpg

Sydney: Captain Michael Clarke is confident the chronic back problem that has hampered him for years will not keep him out of Australia's upcoming one-day series in India.
Clarke arrived back in Sydney late Wednesday after a gruelling England tour that saw Australia humbled 3-0 in the Test series before they bounced back to win the one-day international series 2-1.
His back flared up again before the final ODI in Southampton and Clarke said he would consult team physiotherapist Alex Kountouris and probably undergo scans, but remained hopeful he could go to India.
"No doubt it's quite stiff and sore," he told reporters at Sydney airport.
"But I'll be guided by the experts on what I need to do now to try and get myself as fit as I can be.
"I would certainly like to go and continue to play. I'm enjoying my cricket at the moment."
"It was a good win for us in the ODI series and we need to keep that momentum going," he added. "The last couple of weeks were a good start and (I) hope we can keep that going in India."
Australia are due to play seven ODIs and one Twenty20 international in India. The T20 game, which kicks off the tour, is on October 10 in Rajkot.
The squad is yet to be announced but The Sydney Morning Herald said veteran wicketkeeper Brad Haddin was in line for a recall after Matthew Wade had a lean tour of England.
Haddin, 35, was brought back into the Test side in place of Wade for the Ashes to serve as Clarke's vice-captain and he broke Rod Marsh's 30-year-old record for the most dismissals in a series, but he was not in the one-day team.
Before the final Test at the Oval he signalled a desire to play in the 2015 World Cup in Australia.
Clarke insisted a lot of positives came out of the England tour, despite the Ashes disappointment. But he would not be drawn on where Australia needed to improve for the return series starting in November.
"I don't think it's right to go into specifics, we just have to play better cricket more consistently," he said.
"In patches we played some really good cricket but over a five-Test series you've got to be at your best consistently throughout the whole time and we just didn't quite do that."

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/257691" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-c6a18d95f3263bd679aa421671455584" value="form-c6a18d95f3263bd679aa421671455584" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="86418687" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>