At the weekend, Clarke celebrated the second anniversary of his appointment as Australia's 43rd Test captain with a night in hospital suffering from gastroenteritis. If the illness was a lingering reminder of the recent tour of India, it was not the only unpleasantness to accompany him back from the sub-continent. The 4-0 Test drubbing not only once again exposed the frailties of the Australian batting but also featured off-field problems, most notably when four players were dropped for not performing a post-match assignment.Clarke singled out the performances of batsmen Phil Hughes, Ed Cowan and Steve Smith as positives to come out of the tour, along with the workrate of seamers such as James Pattinson, Peter Siddle and Mitchell Starc. Whereas Ponting during his reign as captain was not on the selection panel and therefore able to shrug off, or even share, media incredulity at mismanagement of players, Clarke has no such luxury. Clarke pugnaciously defended the "homework-gate exclusions as necessary to foster the team ethic required to fulfil the ambition he starkly laid out two years ago - to become number one ranked team in all forms of the game. The Australians flirted with taking the top Test ranking off South Africa in their home series at the end of last year but ultimately went down 1-0 to the Proteas. They are currently ranked fourth. Clarke will have plenty of time to reflect on how much progress has been made over the last two years in the next seven to 10 weeks as he recovers from hamstring and lower back injuries that ruled him out of the final Test in India.
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