Concerns over Clarke fitness

The Australian selectors have included Michael Clarke in the test squad for the tour of United Aram Emirates, but, there are concerns over his fitness. There are speculations that he might not make it to the first couple of matches of the test series because of his hamstring problem which he sustained on Zimbabwe tour last month.

Clarke would probably have got rid of that problem by now if he had not made the wrong call of featuring in a match of that Zimbabwe tri-series when only 80% fit. He batted for about 2 hours in that match and ended up aggravating his problem to get ruled out for the rest of the series.

Clarke is by far Australia’s best player of spin and the Kangaroos are going to miss him badly there in the Emirates if he happens to be unavailable eventually.

Clarke makes a difference with his captaincy as well especially in test match cricket.

Brad Haddin, the Australian vice captain, is also a wily, old fox, but, he has not captained that much internationally and thus, for him to lead the Kangaroos in alien conditions against Pakistan, which has got as good a spin attack as any other team in the world, it would be hard.

A couple of weeks are there for Clarke to recover though and he has assured his fans on twitter that his recovery is going well.

This UAE tour is very important for Australia. People consider them an impotent side on spinning pitches. It’s a tag which they can get rid of if they win the series against Pakistan on the slow pitches of Emirates, but, for that, they would surely need a fit Clarke.

Australia’s tour of UAE starts on October 7.