Just three Australia have scored a bigger number of keeps running than Clarke - who has combat an endless back condition all through his profession - and the active commander is additionally the main Australian to score a hundred on both his home and away Test introductions.
Yet Clarke won't bow out with the sort of unstinting profound respect his vocation would seem to merit.
Clarke, nicknamed "Pup", burst on the scene with a precious stone studded ear-ring and highlights in his hair.
He soon got to be something of a lightning pole for Australians miserable with parts of current Australia - and they were soon ready to express their dismay in that most cutting edge of courses on online networking, where Clarke's associations with previous sweetheart Lara Bingle and now wife Kyly, both one-time models, were revealed - frequently by Clarke himself.
"Michael was more your 21st century chief, he was single, he was flashier, carried on with an alternate life to a few of us before, however that doesn't make him a terrible individual, nor an awful commander," previous Australia captain Mark Taylor educated ESPNCricinfo when asked concerning Clarke.
Be that as it may, previous Australia mentor John Buchanan, accountable for the side for the initial four years of Clarke's global vocation, said the "loose green society" so exceptionally prized when he was advancing in the side had "vanished a touch" under the now 34-year-old's captaincy.
Intense runs
Clarke affirmed he would resign promptly after Britain's innings and 78-run win in the fourth Test at Trent Connect recently gave them a phenomenal 3-1 lead in the five-match Cinders arrangement.
The timing of Clarke's declaration prompted allegations that he had attempted to make what ought to have been Britain's day "about him", a feedback that was broadcast when he affirmed he would be stopping one-day internationals on the eve of Australia's Reality Container last triumph against New Zealand prior this year.
In the interim, the way that a few individuals in and around the Australia group are vitriolic when discussing Clarke can't be attributed exclusively to envy.
After his presentation hundred in Bangalore in 2004, which he finished wearing his loose green Australia top instead of his head protector, Clarke like numerous a youthful player before him saw his structure plunge.
He was soon confronting the charge that he didn't make "intense runs" and was likewise a "pet" of his companion, vivid twist rocking the bowling alley extraordinary Shane Warne.
In any case, beginning with a sublime innings of 329 not out against India in his local Sydney, the year 2012 denoted a brilliant time for Clarke - who wound up accountable for an Australia side shorn of a few extraordinary players including Glenn McGrath and Warne.
It in the end drove the Sydney Morning Messenger to say to learn for remarks about his way of life at the same time, as cricket essayist Jarrod Kimber saw: "To get an open statement of regret all Michael Clarke needed to do was score 329 not out, 210, 259 not out and 230 in one year".
However, a 4-0 arrangement misfortune in India prompted charges that Clarke had been complicit in players being dropped for neglecting to compose composed reports about their execution - despite the fact that the fault for "homework-entryway" fell predominantly on the then mentor Mickey Arthur.
Passionate tribute
Clarke's notoriety was supported by Australia's 5-0 Slag whipping of Britain in 2013/14, while his eminent 161 at Cape Town in an arrangement securing win away to South Africa in Spring a year ago, in the wake of misery a broken arm, was a magnificent case of making "intense runs".
Off the field, he would win praises later in 2014 for the way he behaved after Australia batsman Phillip Hughes passed on in the wake of being hit on the head by a bouncer in a state match and for the moving tribute he gave at his companion's burial service.
The hundred he made against India in Adelaide after Hughes' memorial service was a significant innings in the circumstances.
Yet, with flees slipping from Clarke, who has come to 25 only six times in his last 30 Test innings, the old charges against him soon reemerged.
AFP