Michael Clarke closing the gap in fitness race

A club match in which he batted leisurely for two hours. A warm-up game in which he fielded, bowled and batted with greater freedom. A period of intensive training and rehab in Adelaide while he watches his team play India, another warm-up match against the UAE in which he will play.

Day by day, piece by piece, Australia's captain Michael Clarke is closing the gap between his current level of physical output and the peak of fitness that he expects of himself during the World Cup. The building blocks are being placed carefully and methodically by Clarke, who quietly rejoices in each small sign of progress after hamstring surgery but is not tempting fate by taking the next one for granted.

Critical to all this is that Clarke wants to be able to move and play at his best come the February 21 match against Bangladesh. This is why he is building up steadily rather than swiftly, why he is not going to be playing against India on Sunday, and why the coach Darren Lehmann's talk of Clarke being passed fit to play for the tournament opener against England at the MCG on February 14 seems a little too fanciful for such a careful climb.

"I think I'll get there by continuing to take each step," Clarke said in Adelaide. "My running's close to full speed now, so I'll keep doing a lot of work there. Keep working hard with my strength, and then doing as much cricket-specific stuff as possible is going to get me to the intensity I need to be.

"Fielding with Mike Young yesterday at Allan Border Field was a real good start. That's probably the area I need to be 100% satisfied that my body can cope with going 100 miles an hour. That's the way I've always played my cricket and that's the way I want to continue to play. I don't want to be restricted in where I field and how I field. I want to be able to play the type of cricket I've played over my whole career."

Apart from the physical work Clarke is doing, other gaps need to be closed as well. He has returned to camp with the team as leader for the first time since the Adelaide Test, despite having made sporadic visits to the dressing room in between that emotional week and his arrival to speak ahead of Australia's World Cup tilt in a function room at Adelaide's Intercontinental Hotel.

This means reconnecting with team-mates, speaking more closely with staff other than the medical and fitness division with whom he is presently most familiar, and devoting some time to the cricket questions of this tournament. There will be plenty of senior figures at Cricket Australia happy to hear that Clarke spoke about his body and his future for only around half of his press conference on Friday, rather than all of it.

"The teams that have won the World Cup, I've looked at them as the No. 1 team in the world," Clarke said when reminded of Australia's strong record in bilateral series but lack of an ICC trophy of any kind since 2009. "It is nice we've had success along the way, hopefully that helps us with confidence and momentum going into a major tournament, but in saying that it's one game at a time.

"You need to build momentum through the tournament but you need to have consistent success. So hopefully how we have performed over the last couple of years, we can take that confidence into this tournament, but we need to be at our best.

"I've never minded the length of the tournament. I know it's spoken about often being too long, but as a player I've never minded it, it gives you time to get to the next destination, get your body and mind right, look at your opposition and then prepare."

Two months ago, Clarke took the field for the Adelaide Test knowing his preparation had been less than ideal. For near enough to two weeks following the blow that felled Phillip Hughes at the SCG in late November, he did nothing in the way of work on his tender hamstring. When it grabbed in the field on the final day of the match, after his back had also gone into spasm when he batted, Clarke was downcast but not surprised. This time will be different.

"I probably had a 12-day period before the Adelaide Test where I didn't do a thing," he said. "I was pretty occupied with some other stuff, so that probably wasn't the best preparation leading into the Test. So there's a big difference there already. I didn't have my best preparation for Adelaide, I don't think any player did, but in regard to my physical fitness I had no preparation going into that Test match.

"The preparation I've been doing on a daily basis gives me the freedom and confidence to run at that intensity or move in the field or bowl or bat. My whole career the work I do off the field has given me every chance to have the success I've had on the field, and that won't change. Between me playing yesterday for the CA XI and walking out and playing an ODI, there's still a gap there, but I'll close that gap by the work I do off the field, and once I set foot on the ground I don't hold anything back. I give 100% and back the work I've done."

When Clarke was initially set he February 21 deadline, many thought it too soon for a realistic return from surgery. But day by day and piece by piece, it is becoming harder to bet against him.