Michael Clarke - A Man of Integrity

While Indians will not look down at his Ganguly's catch and his standing his ground after getting caught behind favourably in the infamous Sydney test.

But, I must say I have come to admire that man for having the balls and clarity at turning down IPL when most of his teammates and half the cricketing world went all out to get sold off for money. Man had the guts to turn his back on seriously a lot of money as the bids prove. Must not have been easy to fight the temptation even if it meant sacrificing 6 weeks of family time. But that man refused to be a whore, for the pimps at BCCI and ICC.

“I am 26 years of age and I want to give myself every chance of having a long career for Australia.
Right now, I want to finish the (one-day) series well, win the Pura Cup with New South Wales and take my old man fishing.”

Solid sense of priorities, especially commitment to domestic cricket over a treasure trove of riches. Will never see any Indian superstar show that level commitment and loyalty to their domestic teams ever.

Hats off to him.

Fark that shite. Indians rule!

I must also applaud Mitchell Johnson and Brad Haddin for showing the same level of self respect.

What happened to Jason Gillespie? Wasn't he up for sale as well? Was he dropped or did he refuse? I would have thought being out of international cricket like McGrath and Warne, he would have jumped at the lottery on offer?

What were the reasons for Haddin and Johnson refusing the offers?

I am not surprised that all any BCCI man can talk is shit -

I S Bindra [on Michael Clarke] -

IPL co-founder I S Bindra speculated that Clarke might have been looking to boost his marketing power before joining the tournament. “Maybe he wants to be captain of Australia before he signs,” said Bindra.

:laule:

What a fecking clown.

I don't get it. How does he have more 'integrity' for turning down an offer to play for 2 months for an obscene amount of cash when the domestic season in Oz is finished and he won't have to choose between playing for IPL or Australia. Seems more like a case of -

Michael Clarke - A Man with very little common sense.

Batman wrote:But, I must say I have come to admire that man for having the balls and clarity at turning down IPL when most of his teammates and half the cricketing world went all out to get sold off for money. Man had the guts to turn his back on seriously a lot of money as the bids prove. Must not have been easy to fight the temptation even if it meant sacrificing 6 weeks of family time. But that man refused to be a whore, for the pimps at BCCI and ICC.

“I am 26 years of age and I want to give myself every chance of having a long career for Australia.
Right now, I want to finish the (one-day) series well, win the Pura Cup with New South Wales and take my old man fishing.”

Solid sense of priorities, especially commitment to domestic cricket over a treasure trove of riches. Will never see any Indian superstar show that level commitment and loyalty to their domestic teams ever.

Hats off to him.

he is clearly setting his sights on the captaincy .. plays well...country above money...the white flannels
and baggy green cap..."can't be bought"....upright anglo-saxon morality vs the bazaar traders....

he is only 26 and can easily wait a couple years to rake in lot of $$.

He's worried about his Bingle ...

embee wrote:He's worried about his Bingle ...

that too ...

doremi wrote:I don't get it. How does he have more 'integrity' for turning down an offer to play for 2 months for an obscene amount of cash when the domestic season in Oz is finished and he won't have to choose between playing for IPL or Australia. Seems more like a case of -

Michael Clarke - A Man with very little common sense.

Not many people show enough common sense to shove their middle fingers up the arrogant Highness BCCI's noses.....

Especially where BCCI Moolah is concerned

wait it gets even better....totally rotfl stuff from readers...just read up from
the bottom...

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/comments/0,22058,23255722-5006069,00.html

Maybe Mr Ponting and a few other Aussies should concentrate on their own cricketing skills. Ponting averageing 10 in his last 5 bats in 50 over cricket he might have be lucky to get his 436,000. Might be time to hang up his baggy green.

Posted by: chris wal of central coast 6:52am today
Comment 3 of 3

Shades of the World Series Cricket years are beginning to emerge. Don't be mistaken their(Ponting and company) will be noses out of joint all right, you can absolutley bet on that, particulalry when non-regular cricketers such as David Hussey and Cameron White are getting big dollars. Egos are being bruised by this concept and one wonders what the long term agenda of the Indians is in this whole issue.

Posted by: mekeni of Tathra 7:23am today
Comment 6 of 3

It would seem the Indians maybe have forgiven Symonds and are keen to move on after all he is a great one day batsmen, as for Ponting maybe his handling of the SCG Test was his undoing and he isn't as popular as he thought he was hence his lower than Symonds payment.

Posted by: Lorraine 8:19am today
Comment 9 of 35

Ricky Ponting is the best batsman, however, he averages only 12.4 in India. Add to that his recent form slump on home soil against India and there you have it. Who cares what a bunch of fat cat Indian's bid for our players for a stupid meaningless series.

Posted by: Stuttie of Sydney 9:04am today
Comment 15 of 35

"I have had my fair share of endorsements over the years and always felt the Indian people have warmed to me quite often when I have been there," Ponting said. What is Ricky smoking? The Indian people have warmed to him? No, Ricky, they havent. Not after you pushed our cricket board chairman off the stage, claimed that people werent interested in watching our underperforming Indian team, threatened to target our captain on his tour to your country (only to become the target instead) and ran to the ICC when things heated up with Bhajji (I believe he called you a "litle girl"). We have a lot more respect for Symonds, who despite our misgivings off his allegations came off as looking sincere.

Posted by: Jack Straw 9:46am today
Comment 17 of 35

Ricky must be kidding. Dissapointed to be getting paid less than Hussey, White etc must be a real kick in the teeth. He should have done a Simmo and let everyone know that he was thinking of not going to the pakistan too. Saying that it is not bad pay if you can get it.

Posted by: Eddie of Sydney 10:05am today
Comment 19 of 35

Bringing up the issue of a contract breach re: Symmo?? Leave that to the relevant authorities Ricky and concentrate on your batting average son! Ponting's IPL price is a clear clear sign that people would rather have young, up and coming talent coupled with entertaining personalities like Symmo (however much I dislike him) over him any day. People in India don't warm to pompous, arrogant pratts. The bulk of Indians love Symmo and there were several hundreds of people outside the hotels in Indian apologising to him after what happening on the last tour of the country. I doubt that would have happened for Ponting. His endorsements in India stem from struggling companies who want to increase sales revenues and have nothing to do with them 'warming' to him!! Get over yourself! It's a similar message for his "religious" mate from QLD - do the sign of the cross after each century and sledge the tripe out of the opposition in the field all day. Tell me, why do people hate this team??

Posted by: Ons of Sydney 11:13am today
Comment 20 of 35

Quite banal. So, he's not scored many after truely immense years. Big deal, his class is apparent even if his form is not. I do agree though, that the likes of David Hussey should earn more than him, he's proven at that level. As for Hayden, totally true. He shouldn't have thrashed those kids either and he should've just "forgiven" Simon Jones.

Batfink Begins wrote: As for Hayden... He shouldn't have thrashed those kids either and he should've just "forgiven" Simon Jones.

Especially as he's now basically a quadriplegic.

You can't hold a grudge against disableds. Karma has already paid them back.

So, given that both Clarke and his partner Bike Bingle's father's apparently have cancer, and he's decided nott o play the IPL in order for them both to have a bit more time with their dads, anyone feel like some humble pie?

Good on him for showing that some things matter more than cricket.

Looks like BCCI has been 'shocked' at being turned down by Clarke and Johnson for IPL. The bloody fat arses in BCCI think that only money talks and nothing else matters, just because they have turned into a bunch of pimps and whores.

It is irritating reading in press Bindra's statements of how both of them have lost out on
$500,000 and $400,000 moolah respectively. Why should he be bothered about those two not wanting that money? The Franchisees picked off most of the players who queued up and it's not like the stupid series will miss out on a couple of players here and there either.

And it continues. He's told the IPL 'Not this year either.'

He mightn't be the sharpest tool in the shed off the pitch, but he's got good cricket nouse.

MC is the man(well almost)

Good man, Pup.

Banfarkinindia.

Sometimes it's worth hunting through the old threads when stories develop.

You won't be too pleased to read this.

"I'd love to take part in it one day. It's just about finding the right time for me to be a part of it."

It was a tough decision, he said, which is why he took his time over it. "There's obviously a lot of great things about the IPL and that's why I say I certainly want to be a part of it at some stage.

Asked whether he was surprised, given the constraints, that so many Australian players had signed up, Clarke demurred, and spoke of the positive spin-offs from the tournament. "I think it's a wonderful thing for cricket. It's definitely improved Twenty20 cricket, certainly played a part in improving one-day cricket and the lead-up to the Twenty20 World Championship is the IPL, so it's pretty good preparation."

"It doesn't surprise me so many guys are going there. It's just a personal choice at this stage."

Zat wrote:Sometimes it's worth hunting through the old threads when stories develop.

Aye, you've dug up some more quality today.

SG wrote:You won't be too pleased to read this.

"I'd love to take part in it one day. It's just about finding the right time for me to be a part of it."

It was a tough decision, he said, which is why he took his time over it. "There's obviously a lot of great things about the IPL and that's why I say I certainly want to be a part of it at some stage.

Asked whether he was surprised, given the constraints, that so many Australian players had signed up, Clarke demurred, and spoke of the positive spin-offs from the tournament. "I think it's a wonderful thing for cricket. It's definitely improved Twenty20 cricket, certainly played a part in improving one-day cricket and the lead-up to the Twenty20 World Championship is the IPL, so it's pretty good preparation."

"It doesn't surprise me so many guys are going there. It's just a personal choice at this stage."

That says it all I guess.

SG, I've seen that quote. He'll play in it one day, sure, but right now, as he's building up a case to succeed the dopey drunk as captain, and knows the importance of taking some time off, good on him.

Anyways, most of franchisees had categorically said (prior to Clarke opting out of IPL) they anyway won't have been bidding for someone as expensive pick as Clarke is for whatever little time he'd be available for IPL because of Aus's ODI series against Pak.

Just doesn't make any business sense to bid for him. As far as his cricketing abilities go, he'd have been a very handy pick for any IPL side.

he's building up a case to succeed the dopey drunk as captain

As I don't know much about captaincy credentials can you tell me, does he possess good tactical acumen? I mean is he being viewed as potential Aus skipper?

SG wrote:

he's building up a case to succeed the dopey drunk as captain

As I don't know much about captaincy credentials can you tell me, does he possess good tactical acumen? I mean is he being viewed as potential Aus skipper?

He is under 30.