Fellow Older Folk,
Whatever you think of MJ Clarke you'd have to feel sorry for the bloke, at the minute.
It's more, much more, than making a bad call or pulling the wrong rein.
And to make matter worse, just "missing it" doesn't cut the mustard.
When Pup was making his lap of honour in an open top car around the SCG during the one-day dead-rubber against India as the most prominent retired NSW player of last year, somehow managed to convince myself that he was holding a small white dog.
Makes sense. Nice touch. Pup goes out with a Pup! Marketers dream.
But alas, no...the Good Lady Wife accused me of hallucinating - again.
Then it dawned on me that the thing wasn't moving [you know puppies, mad as hatters, run and jump all over the shop; uncontrolable], then found out later it was in fact his wee bairn.
The baby daughter dressed in her swadling clothes and wrapped in a fluffy white blanket.
As Michael was making half-hearted attempts to do the Royal Wave in acknowledgement of the non-accolades he was receiving from the crowd [didn't see no standing ovation] and no doubt thinking to himself "why am I here? saying goodbye, when I don't want to say goodbye?" he looked the very picture of forlorn sadness.
All my blog posts since Clarkey's ignominious retirement from the game after captaining Australia to a catastrophic loss in the miserable Ashes series against the Evil Poms away have been mainly to do with what is Michael going to do with himself in the afterlife - post cricket?
It's not as if he hasn't tried hard.
Just didn't have the stomach to be an ocean racing yachtsman [too much chundering even on a boat that was going nowhere], and his failed bomb as a television cricket commenator, where he just didn't fit the Channel Nine cookie-cutter mould and loomed as a ratings killer.
What next?
You can only change nappies for so long, as the Wife happily goes about her business of selling her post-partem excercise and diet regimes to the women's magazines for a tidy sum.
Early on, fatherhood is not all that it's cracked up to be - just ask me - but it does get better Pup, you can be assured.
Still, at the moment, perhaps he's not getting the right kind of joy he was expecting from the new baby.
So what does he do?
Signs a three month contract with the Western Suburbs Cricket Club, where he grew up and was identified early on as a big fish keeper.
Problem is Pup, it's easy to forget about the selectors when you were getting picked all the time.
You, of all people, after being dropped numerous times in your early test career, should know about the vagaries of the Chairman and the faceless three wise men.
No idea how Wests are going on the ladder, but what if they are doing well and threatening to make the Grand Final?
The selectors might be loathe to change the first grade line up to accomodate a retired grandee at the expense of some honest toiler who richly deserves a premiership, and decide to pick MJ Clarke at No.3 in the seconds.
What happens then?
The long and the short of it is, Pup's test career is over [WG Grace played test cricket until he was 50, but MJ aint no WG], he hasn't played a T20 game at any level since 2010 [you have to remember he gave up the captaincy of the T20 side in favour of George Bailey, and then quit T20 altogether - because - let's face it, he was crap at it], he's too old and crippled to play more than a couple of seasons in Sheffield Shield cricket at best [he said in his on-the run press interview "if NSW want to talk to me I'd be happy to listen", he wouldn't play for any other state, and he doesn't want or need County Cricket [where much older, but fitter, men have plyed a good trade for many years].
Isn't that it?
He'd better take down his little history book from the shelf, dust it off, and have another look - just to remind himself that so many sportsmen in so many different codes down the years have retired at the height of their powers, only to make fools of themselves in their unexpected comebacks.
Sure, he "misses the camaraderie", who wouldn't?
The five star hotels around the world, the fabulous money, every whim and desire fully catered for, tremendous big knees-ups, plus you can have any girl you want for free.
What's not to like about that?
The Gravy Train is a very very fine place to be, don't you worry about that.
But you'd expect he'd easily tire of playing in front of the ground staff and the Man and his Dog at suburban ovals, only to have his scores printed on the sixth inside back page of the papers in very small type.
Dear oh dear oh deary me.
The poor poor bloke is well and truly caught between a rock and a hard place.
It's enough to shit a man to tears.
