Clarke Growing Into Skipper Material - Buchanan
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday April 26, 2007
AS HE prepares to pack up his laptop and leave the Australian dressing room after eight phenomenally successful years as coach, John Buchanan has glimpsed a new maturity in Michael Clarke and sees the bright young batsman as a possible future captain of his country.
Buchanan's parting remarks about the 26-year-old represent an enormous show of faith in Clarke, who went into the World Cup semi-final against South Africa on Wednesday (overnight, Sydney time) with an average of 73.60 in the tournament, having gone a long way towards taking ownership of the No.4 spot vacated by Damien Martyn.Buchanan's investment in his players has always stretched beyond the field, and Clarke's off-field development over the past 12 months has impressed him as much as his fight back into the Test team and steady rise in the limited-overs ranks. "Michael Clarke, I see him growing as a person and he is obviously performing pretty well in the field. He is associating himself with the right people," Buchanan said. "Obviously he is [considered a future captain] because he should be around the team for years to come. By that stage he will be a senior player and should have an incredible record behind him. But who is to know what will happen in the future?"Buchanan, the coaching philosopher who will retire with a winning ratio of about 75 per cent in both forms of the game and whose meticulous preparation has underpinned Australia's extraordinary success since 1999, spoke on Tuesday of his satisfaction in the evolution of players such as Clarke, Matthew Hayden and Shane Watson, and his regrets at never establishing such a rapport with spinners Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill. Buchanan has previously expressed regret for criticising Warne's weight during the losing tour of India in 2001, and Warne last year said some of Buchanan's methods lacked common sense.The pair shared a tent in the outback during last year's boot camp, a concept on which Buchanan did not see eye to eye with either spinner. MacGill reportedly clashed with Buchanan at the end of the 2005 Ashes, in which he did not play a Test."People are not compatible with each other all the time and probably their style and my styles were never going to nicely coalesce. There have been moments when they have gone in the same direction and moments when they haven't, not necessarily due to them or due to me. It's just the way it is," Buchanan said. "I always regret that you don't have the perfect relationship with everybody because if you don't it's very difficult, I think, to bring out the best in them. That to me is one of the roles of the coach, that you're always trying to expand somebody's horizons and if you don't have a good relationship with someone there's no way you can achieve that. I regret that."smh.com.au For Australia v South Africa result
© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald
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