What You See is What You Get

It's a bit sad but I think the first image that's always likely to come into my head when I think of Michael Clarke will remain that of him having his stumps wasted by Steve Harmison at Edgbaston in 2005.

But, as the weekend in Sydney showed again, he can't half bat.

Indeed, he reminds me more than a little of his captain. Right-handed, with the same fundamental orthodoxy, the same precise awareness of what to leave, what to defend and what to attack, and a similar range of strokes.

In true Australian fashion you usually get what you see from both Ponting and Clarke. And with Ponting's position at the head of the team bound to come under greater scrutiny if things go wrong in South Africa, Clarke seems to me to be moving himself into a position from which the selectors might not want to bother looking past him when it comes to finding a successor to Tasmania's finest.

Whether he would want the job before the Ashes is, though, another question. I'm not sure I would.