Michael Clarke – Australia’s complete package for ICC World Cup 2011
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Michael-John-Clarke-c76008 is a right-handed middle-order Australian batsman. He is also a part-time left-arm orthodox spin bowler, and Kangaroo vice-captain.
After Ricky Ponting’s finger injury during the Ashes he was appointed as Australia’s stand-in captain in January 2011 for the remaining matches and seven-match One Day International (ODI) series against England, which the Aussies won 6-1.
Clarke has been playing for the major teams including – http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-South-Wales-c823. The player made debut for New South Wales at the age of 18 in 1999-2000.
Clarke made his ODI debut against England at Adelaide in January 2003 where he scored 39 runs and remained not out. His highest ODI score is 130 against India at Bangalore.
The batsman has featured in 188 ODIs scoring 5928 runs at an average of 43.58 including five centuries and 45 fifties. Clarke has also played a considerable role in the ICC 2007 World Cup win where Australia did not lose a single game.
Clarke was appointed as a number 5 batsman in Australia’s batting-line up after Damien Martyn’s retirement.
During the first mega-event of his career, Clarke made his mark by hitting four fifties including scores of 92 and 93 against the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758.
His total score in the 2007 World Cup was 436 runs at an average of 87.20.
Clarke’s best bowling ODI figures are 5/35 against Sri Lanka at Dambulla in 2003-2004. He also captained Australia ODI team in 2009 as well as in Twenty20 matches against England.
Clarke made his Test debut against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 at Bangalore in 2004 and scored 151 runs.
However, he could not give a considerable performance in the Ashes of 2005 and remained unable to score a test century throughout the year, which led his omission from the Test team at the end of the year.
He has featured in 69 Test matches scoring 4742 runs with an average of 46.49 including 14 centuries and 20 fifties. He last played a Test against England at Sydney in January 2011.
Clarke on his Test debut scored 141 runs against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754 in November 2004 at Brisbane. He became the only Australian player to score a century in his home debut as well as away from home.
Clarke’s highest Test score is 168, which he made against New Zealand in 2009-10 in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Wellington-c864. He was crowned Man of the Series in the 2009 Ashes series for his excellent batting.
29-year old batsman has featured in 34 T20s scoring 488 runs at an average of 21.21. He made his Twenty20 debut against New Zealand at http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Auckland-c766 in February 2005.
He last played a Twenty20 against Sri Lanka at Perth in October 2010. He quit Twenty20 cricket on 7 January 2011, in a bid to pay full attention to other forms of the game.
Clarke has wisely led Australia not only as a stand-in captain but also as an individual player in the recently concluded ODI series against England.
A 6-1 victory over their arch-rivals proved how successfully he kept his team united and took revenge of their humiliating 2010 Ashes defeat.
His total score in this seven-match ODI was 206 with an average of 34.33. Following his recent splendid ODI performances against England he is expected to play a significant role in the ICC World Cup 2011, which will be the second showpiece event of his cricketing career.
Australia will have their first World Cup 2011 encounter with http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Zimbabwe-c3045 at Ahmedabad.
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