Michael Clarke's dangerous game

Michael Clarke is playing a dangerous game. By declaring publicly that he is still in the running for the Gabba Test mere hours after he was scrubbed from a warm-up match the Australian selectors had stated as the only way he can prove his fitness, Clarke was effectively daring Rod Marsh, the chairman of selectors, to rule him out.

There is no doubt that Clarke genuinely believes he can get himself fit for Brisbane. But equally there was no equivocation from either Marsh or his fellow selector Mark Waugh on Monday about the path Clarke must take to do so.

He must show he can play cricket over multiple days - via the tour match against the Indians in Adelaide from Friday - to be considered. There was no hint of other options for Clarke in what either Marsh or Waugh said.

First, Marsh on why he had to play in Adelaide: "I think that's really important, because with his recent history we can't have him breaking down in the first innings of a Test match ... I think we all realise that."

Next, Waugh, on why a single day's grade cricket would not be sufficient: "Ideally it would have been great if he played in the Shield match, but the timeframe just didn't allow that with his injury. So we went for the next best thing and we feel he needs a couple days of cricket to prove his fitness - it's a five-day game Test match cricket, so we felt that was the best way for him to prove his fitness in a two-day game."

As if to remove any remaining doubt, Waugh was asked if Clarke would play the grade game if he was ruled out of the Adelaide tour match: "I wouldn't have thought so. No, I don't think so."

So an open and shut case it would seem? Not so according to Clarke, who revealed the team physio Alex Kountouris had declared him unavailable for the Adelaide match but then stressed he could still prove his fitness by playing in a grade match on Saturday - the same fixture now under Cricket NSW investigation for the contrivances of day one that had Western Suburbs giving up first innings points in order to ensure Clarke could bat for them this Saturday.

"My goal is to try and get myself fit to play whatever game's available," Clarke said. "The next game that I am available for, if I can be fit, is grade cricket on Saturday. So ideally if I can tick all the boxes along the way and play on Saturday, get through that. Hopefully I can make myself available then it is completely up to the selectors to work out what to do."

Clarke is desperate to play in Brisbane, and desperate not to hand over the Test captaincy, even if it is only temporarily to his vice-captain and longtime offsider for state and country, Brad Haddin. His desire to avoid too much time off the field has been proven and re-proven over the past two months.

He returned too early from a hamstring strain in Zimbabwe, which turned into a tear when batting against the hosts. When his team was in danger of losing, Clarke made a snap decision to return to the field to try to conjure a win, even choosing to bowl himself despite the hamstring problem. He then carried the ailment through the UAE before injuring it a third time in Perth.

There is something natural and logical about all this - no international athlete wants to miss matches, particularly not one as driven and focused as Clarke. His ability to shrug off a degenerative back complaint and only ever miss one Test match through injury in a career now into its second decade is a notable achievement.

But the current episode, which has grown ever more dramatic and bizarre since its beginning in Zimbabwe, also demonstrates a dangerous tendency that comes to afflict many sportsmen in the latter days of their careers. Right now Clarke seems unable to see the wider picture, focusing utterly on the Gabba to the exclusion of all else.

Similar scenarios have arisen in previous years. In 2001, Steve Waugh was lionised for breaking many a fitness rule to play in the dead fifth Ashes Test at the Oval with a torn calf. He made a hundred on one leg, but carried the injury home, beginning the decline that would ultimately see him dropped from the ODI captaincy in 2002 and retired by 2004.

In 2009, Brett Lee insisted repeatedly that he was fit for the latter Tests of that year's Ashes tour following a side strain. But having done so before - in India in 2008 and Melbourne against South Africa later that year - and been found wanting, Lee's impassioned pleas were ignored by the selectors, and he retired from Test cricket soon after.

Cricket Australia first raised the wider issue through the straight-talking voice of the team performance manager Pat Howard, who was quick to speak of World Cups and Ashes when summing up Clarke's likely recovery time.

"We are putting the World Cup and Ashes right up there and if he's right for the Indian Test series so be it," Howard had said. "I have talked about the priorities and what they are. Sometimes you have got to take a little bit of a long-term and a medium-term picture. If we do this well, we can get extra years out of Michael who is a world-class player, rather than thinking in days and tournaments."

Initially, Marsh and the coach Darren Lehmann were both unwilling to echo Howard's sentiment, instead speaking positively about progress reports on Clarke's hamstring and refusing to rule him out of Brisbane. But time has marched on, and goals have been set.

Kountouris, who knows Clarke's body and mind best of all, does not believe he can play in Adelaide. Marsh and Waugh, for their part, don't believe they can choose Clarke if he does not make that deadline, because otherwise they have no hard evidence on which to trust the captain's hamstring, as distinct from his word.

Now Clarke, who has always insisted on "listening to the experts," must acknowledge the expertise of the selectors as well as the team's medical staff. To do otherwise would not merely be dangerous, but also quite foolish.