So long, Pup

Michael Clarke has retired.

This is a difficult thing for me to process. I knew it was coming, one way or the other. Years ago, I guessed he would play until he was 34. His chronic back condition made it clear he was never going to be another Ponting, Hussey, or Haddin. Playing until the age of 37 was always out of the question. But I suppose it's the circumstances of his retirement - the disappointing fall from grace as a batsman - that has crushed me the most. Clarke deserves a better exit than this.

At the same time, I feel a sense of relief. He was once indomitable but his decline as a batsman has been marked and swift. I no longer have to feel the intense anxiety when he takes guard, the intense anticipation when he nears a century or the intense disappointment when he is dismissed cheaply.

I'm extremely passionate about cricket. I've been particularly passionate about individual cricketers. I realise cricket is a team sport, but I can't help but wonder if it's in our nature to highlight and glorify individual performances and achievements. I remember the first innings I watched. Really watched. It was the third Test of the 2006-07 Ashes in Perth. Adam Gilchrist walked out to bat on a pair. He went on to score the second-fastest hundred in Tests - a moment of individual greatness. The man at the other end, who got 135, was Clarke.

Ever since, I've found myself gravitating toward individual players. Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting, Michael Hussey and Clarke. I have perhaps fallen into the trap of building them up as something more than human. The end result is almost always disappointment. Only Hussey ended his career on a high.

Clarke has never been the most popular cricket personality in Australia. I haven't always been his biggest fan. I had little faith in Clarke's ability to lead Australia, let alone pick up the pieces of a battered and broken team following a shambolic series defeat against England at the end of 2010 - a defeat more devastating and humiliating than even this current series. Clarke had always shown exceptional ability in isolated circumstances - his magnificent 151 against India on debut, his 166 against Pakistan in 2010, and his 168 against New Zealand immediately following his public break-up with Lara Bingle.

Yet, anomalously, he consistently failed to score runs when they were needed the most. In the first four matches of the 2009 Ashes, Clarke was Australia's best batsman, scoring 445 runs at an average of 89 including two centuries. With the series level heading into the fifth and final match, Clarke was dismissed for 3 in the first innings and for a duck in the second, after Ricky Ponting was run out on 66. Australia went on to lose the match and, consequently, the urn.

The trend continued in the 2010-11 Ashes where he managed a score just one fifty. Clarke had always been touted as being Ponting's successor but his match-saving performances seemed far and few between. He walked out to bat on his home ground in Sydney substituting as captain for an injured Ponting and was booed by both England and Australian supporters. By then, Australia had well and truly lost the Ashes. They had been humiliated by England at home. It was an occasion which marked the passing of an Australia which could otherwise dominate every stage and every opposition.

His potential for leadership was never in doubt. He had always demonstrated an aggressive, proactive, and lateral brand of cricket, but these qualities rarely came through when matches were on the precipice. He took over the Test captaincy full-time in 2011 against a sizeable amount of negative press and national vitriol. It spoke volumes of the state of Australian cricket at the time that Clarke, despite his bad form, was the only viable long-term candidate against a backdrop of youthful and inexperienced players.

Then something changed.

He led Australia to a series victory against Sri Lanka in September 2011, scoring 112 in Australia's second innings of the final match. He followed this up with an astonishing performance against South Africa in Cape Town. While all but three players failed to make scores of ten or more, and Australia were all out for 284, Clarke raced to 151 on as difficult a pitch to bat on as there is. He scored another century - 139 - later that year against New Zealand. It was clear that Clarke's temperament had shifted and that his talent had evolved. He was, like many great Australians before him, making substantial scores consistently and aggressively regardless of opposition or location.

This was, however, simply a sign of something much greater.

Clarke transformed in his first innings of 2012 by scoring 329 not out against India and joining an elite pantheon of batting giants. It was a paradigm shift on a previously unthinkable scale which changed his stature both as a cricketer and as a character. It was a serene and flawless innings - one of, if not the, finest batting performance I have watched to date. Cricket commentator Mark Nicholas described the SCG as being Clarke's "kingdom for the day". The boos from just a year earlier had been erased from memory.

I remember talking about how this was merely the beginning for Clarke. He had well and truly eclipsed himself in every conceivable way. That kind of triumph over mind and body marks you in profoundly significant ways. He nearly doubled his previous highest score - a comparably mortal 168. Before this, he had made four scores of 150 or more without ever passing 170. With that triple-century, Clarke entered a higher realm altogether. It couldn't be overstated how important it was for him to break through and completely shatter the various constraints he had perhaps unconsciously imposed on himself.

I knew that score would change him and it did. Over the course of 2012, Clarke scored a further four centuries. Three of them were doubles: 210, 259 not out and 230. He became the highest run-scorer for an Australian in a calendar year and he became the first man ever to score four scores of 200 or more in Tests in a calendar year, eclipsing the great Sir Donald Bradman. For almost 11 months, he boasted a 100% conversion rate from centuries to double-centuries. He twice out-scored Ponting's highest score. I've not yet seen anyone in greater touch with the bat.

Sadly, he was never able to even remotely replicate those heights again. In hindsight, it was like he knew the end of his career would come sooner than he would like and responded by scoring several years' worth of runs in just one.

Since early 2014, Clarke's prowess has diminished considerably. His last truly great moment as a batsman came in March last year. Against the might of South Africa's Morne Morkel and Dale Steyn, he sustained a fractured shoulder in pursuit of a remarkable 161 not out, leading Australia to a series win over the world's No. 1 team. It is rightly considered one of the greatest innings by a captain in recent times.

Since then, he has never been able to truly regain his touch.

It's not difficult to identify why. The hostile barrage of bowling he faced against South Africa, a series of hamstring injuries in a short space of time, and the tragic death of Phillip Hughes late last year rocked Clarke as an individual. His precision, his keen eye, his dancing footwork, and even his conviction disappeared.

His last innings of note was against India last summer. He battled through another bout of debilitating back pain, scoring an emotional 128 against the dying of the light in tribute of his "little brother". It must have taken an incredible amount of sheer willpower to do what Clarke did that day. The courage and leadership he demonstrated throughout that period was commendable and deeply moving.

Despite his abysmal form, he cannot be singularly blamed for Australia's failings in England these past few weeks. He cannot be blamed for the team's collective failure to deal with the moving ball and the deficient batting techniques of individual players.

Perhaps Clarke's defining characteristic is that he is a fighter. Things have rarely come easy for him. He has always had to fight for them; he has endured a degenerative back issue, been dropped from the side, criticised by analysts, ridiculed by the media, and shunned by the public. This is part of what I find so endearing about him.

I always imagined Clarke would score over 10,000 Test runs. Over 30 Test centuries. Alas, it is not to be. Yet another cruel reminder that the careers of great sportsman rarely end as romantically as we would like them to.

Clarke is the last vestige of Ponting's once-in-a-lifetime squad and with his retirement my enthusiasm for the game has diminished sharply.

So long, Pup. Enjoy your retirement.