Michael Clarke, who is at present the captain of the Australian cricket team, received a much needed boost before his side takes on the English in the Ashes. Clarke has now received the ‘Wisden Cricketer of the Year’ award for 2012.
The batsman is yet to receive widespread acceptance in Australia after being chosen as the national captain. He also found himself in the middle of another controversy, when he backed team’s head coach (Mickey Arthur) and dropped 4 crucial players from the side on disciplinary grounds, in the middle of a Test series in India. Questions were also raised over Clarke’s fitness, after he pulled himself out of the fourth and final Test due to the recurrence of a back problem.
With the accolade from Wisden, the cricketer also became the first Australian after Shane Warne to win the award. Clarke beat out five other competitors for the crown of ‘Cricketer of the Year’ for his outstanding performance in 2012, which saw him score 4 double centuries in a calendar year, a feat which has not been achieved since the great Sir Don Bradman.
Other players who made the elite list were Marlon Samuels, Jacques Kallis, Hashim Amla and Nick Crompton.
