Time To Welcome The Captain Home

It might so easily be turned into a day of statistics.

• Australia added 366 in the process of giving India 1 wicket;
• Michael Clarke added 204 to finish on 251 and become the highest Australian scorer in the 100 SCG Tests. In doing so, he surpassed the seven previous Baggy Green double century makers, Syd Gregory, Greg Chappell, Ricky Ponting, Justin Langer and then a final three of Syd Barnes, Don Bradman and the record holder, Doug Walters - all blokes who could play a little;
• Ricky Ponting ended a two year wait for his 40th Test century;
• Ponting and Clarke added 288 for the 4th wicket and Hussey and Clarke 157 for the 5th
• there was one dropped catch and one missed run out

So what? Cricket is a game reliant on its stats but not just to allow comparisons across eras. Their far more important role is to initiate the long discussions during breaks in play that carry over to watering holes beyond the boundary and lounge rooms skilled enough in the real arts of cricket to ignore the commentary and draw their own conclusions. In these venues, batting averages and highest scores act only to draw men and increasingly women forward into groups to add to the rich tradition of oral history that cricket has developed better than any other sport.

Clarke driving straight

In those venues today, notice would have been given to the first session where Clarke and Ponting, resuming  only a few runs apart, added 120 and yet were never separated by more than four runs. Twenty minutes before lunch, they were both on 87; five minutes later, 90 and 91; and so it continued as it had been all session until with two overs left, Clarke was 98 and Ponting 97. Clarke took a single from Zaheer Khan who then he held Ponting on 97 for the rest of the over. Clarke broke the tension with a four of Sharma's first ball and his celebrations were of a man greatly relived to be performing grand deeds on his home ground. Even here, yesterday, he walked half way to the wicket in silence until the ground announcers asked for the crowd to approve him. This nonsense about his ascendancy to the top job, the Katich rumours and the accusations in regard his relationship break up with a third rate celebrity must stop. Australia's captaincy has never been in better hands and Australia's media and her spectators need to build their own bridge and get over themselves.

The new gladiator left the ground a few balls later with the old gladiator by his side until they neared the boundary edge, when Ponting dropped back, adopting a supine position and leading the applause. No more powerful metaphor has been witnessed in the game in recent years and it was a symbol of Clarke's rise to the top and displayed a side of Ponting which had never been that obvious before he stood down from the captaincy ... his humility.

Ponting reaches his
hundred

It took 19 deliveries after lunch before Ponting was rewarded for the hard work which has become harder in the last two months, despite his increasingly better form. The signs that this century was coming were obvious but as time stretched its arrival, teasing Ponting, his team mates and the faithful public who may turn on those who flash in the pan but rarely forget their champions. Pushing and running off a former bogey, Inshant Sharma, he knew he had misjudged when half way there and covered the last yards in a dive. Emerging from the dust, his shirt a symptom of the battle scars which had cut and harmed and threatened a fatal bleed over the past two years, he looked at the wicket after standing and a slight delay showed the doubt which has slipped into his aging game and then the achievement was realised and the din overtook him. Clarke stood off to allow him the moment and then rushed in to return due adoration. The crowd stood and applauded for minutes, some baying like wolves howling messages to the moon and all with their own understanding of what it meant.

I remain a critic of the the little No 14 but not for his batting or fielding. These have always been first rate and today is not the day to rekindle those points of dispute I have with him. Today is about revering a champion and a game which can throw up such moments which do so much more than decide sporting events. For beginners or seasoned veterans, the game gave us life experiences from the safety of the boundary fence, as actors played out the larger moments of our lives and showed us honour and courage and self-belief in its truest and most important forms. Today is, however, the day to admit I misjudged his courage and motivation. As a player alone, he is one of our truest champions.

To make this moment even sweeter, as younger Indians grasped their heads at Ponting's close shave and cursed their luck, one stood apart, immediately clapping the achievement with a generosity that marks the best of the best. Rahul Dravid's approval of Ponting's victory was one his own personal journey reflects. In a long and bitter battle with inner demons and the hawks of the media who have torn from the flesh of his status in order to fulfil this Australian delight with cutting the tallest poppies down, Ponting has gone down a path Dravid himself walked a few years back.  One champion to another, he showed his appreciation that a brother in arms had risen above it all, standing with his the symbols of his trade - his bat, a personal shield and the coat of arms on his helmet his on going motivation - raised in the glory of personal victory. 

This is no game.

Salties filled my eyes.

Mike Hussey 55x

From here, it was all down hill for India. MS Dhoni and his bowlers had nothing to offer as Clarke and Ponting and then Hussey cut them to shreds. It happens that way sometimes. India were on the other side of the equation in 2003, in Steve Waugh's last Test, making 700 plus.

With three days left, Clarke will bat on, not for individual glory but to wear the pitch out for India to bat on in the last two days. In the process, he should surpass the best scores of all time and what impeccable timing that he has to do so in the 100th Test. He sits equal with Wally Hammond (1928) and has only Brian Lara 277 (1993) and Bob Foster 287 (1903) ahead of him. The superstitions and bogeys of this game will keep me seated and prevent even whispers of Bradman and Taylor. That's for fingernails if the time comes. Hussey too will have the chance to feast and under such circumstances, he usually scores three figures.

For a man who watched Walters score that 242 in 1969, today was more than a treat.