Two years on, Clarke still has the stomach for the fight

SYDNEY: Australian cricketing prospects have rarely looked bleaker than when Michael Clarke took over the Test captaincy after the last Ashes series but only an out-and-out optimist would declare the outlook that much brighter two years on.

While his personal stock has risen inexorably on the back of a torrent of runs, Clarke's Australia could hardly be said to be looking ready, willing and able to contest back-to-back Test series against England this year.

At the weekend, Clarke celebrated the second anniversary of his appointment as Australia's 43rd Test captain with a night in hospital suffering from gastroenteritis.

If the illness was a lingering reminder of the recent tour of India, it was not the only unpleasantness to accompany him back from the sub-continent.

The 4-0 Test drubbing not only once again exposed the frailties of the Australian batting but also featured off-field problems, most notably when four players were dropped for not performing a post-match assignment.

Clarke pugnaciously defended the "homework-gate" exclusions as necessary to foster the team ethic required to fulfil the ambition he starkly laid out two years ago - to become number one ranked team in all forms of the game.

The Australians flirted with taking the top Test ranking off South Africa in their home series at the end of last year but ultimately went down 1-0 to the Proteas. They are currently ranked fourth.

Clarke will have plenty of time to reflect on how much progress has been made over the last two years in the next seven to 10 weeks as he recovers from hamstring and lower back injuries that ruled him out of the final Test in India.

Still, if the India tour was the nadir for the Clarke-led Australia team, there have been plenty of highlights too.

Clarke, who turned 32 on Tuesday, has led the team to 12 wins, six defeats and five draws in 23 Tests.

There have been series sweeps of India (4-0) and Sri Lanka (3-0) at home, series wins in West Indies and Sri Lanka as well as a 1-1 draw in an extraordinary series in South Africa.

There has also been his own remarkable form since he took the job, 2,533 Test runs at an average of 68.45 with one triple century, three double centuries and five other hundreds.

Clarke repeatedly, and apparently genuinely, trots out the line that he would trade all his runs for victories for his team.

And, as Ponting discovered to his cost after three Ashes defeats, Australian captains will only ultimately be defined by how they fare against England.(Reuters)