Clarke said that Australia could not afford to blood a new Test captain amid the immense pressure an Ashes series.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
"They've got to make a decision based on timing, for both formats," Clarke told Sky Sports Radio on Wednesday, speaking before Paine and Finch's confirmation for the upcoming series.<\/p>\n
"Australia go to South Africa for a Test series, then they come back and we've got the Ashes next. For mine, if Tim Paine is going to be the captain during the Ashes, stick with him. If he's not, he's got to go now because you've got to give the new captain the opportunity in that format before an Ashes series.<\/p>\n
"Way too big a series to walk in and make your debut as a captain. Too big. [If Paine goes to South Africa], he's got to be a part of the Ashes series.<\/p>\n
"I say the same thing in the Twenty20s as well. If Aaron Finch is going to captain the T20 World Cup, keep him as captain now. If he's not, he's got to go now so the new captain has the opportunity to get some leadership under his belt before he goes to India for a World Cup.<\/p>\n
"The timing is very important right now for Australian cricket. They've got to make a call: are we sticking with what we have or are we making that change?<\/p>\n
"If they decide to make the change, my opinion is Pat Cummins can captain all three formats."<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Clarke pointed out that being a three-format captain was no longer straightforward, with the New Zealand and South Africa tours overlapping. He said that he was otherwise certain of Cummins' leadership qualities, regardless of a traditional captaincy bias against bowlers, after the superstar paceman was player of the series against India.<\/p>\n
"Pat Cummins just showed us he's ready," Clarke said.<\/p>\n
"Whatever you throw at this Australian team and at Pat Cummins, he's ready. He's shown his character; man of the series in a series that you just got beaten by, at one stage, India's second-string team.<\/p>\n
"Pat Cummins, he is the one player that did stand up for Australia, so I think we very clearly got a good glimpse at the type of character Pat Cummins is.<\/p>\n
"If they're going to go the way [where] Tim Paine's time is up, we're bringing in a few new, younger players, then I'm cool with that but Pat Cummins is the leader. Pat Cummins is that captain."<\/p>\n
Clarke said that Paine's tactical captaincy was found wanting in this summer's India Test series, contributing to a 2-1 defeat. His glovework and temperament were also criticised.<\/p>\n
"Tactically, that's probably the major stand-out for me; that through this summer, tactically we missed a number of tricks that had a significant impact on Australia not winning this Test series," Clarke said.<\/p>\n
Clarke said that Finch looked in "deep trouble"<\/a> after his BBL nightmare and his Australian T20 captaincy was under "serious pressure".<\/p>\n The former Australian skipper also said that he believed Steve Smith could not captain Australia again due to the hysteria surrounding any infraction after the ball-tampering scandal. He also questioned whether Smith would even want the job, especially after the recent furore at the SCG; where he was accused of cheating<\/a> for scratching at the batting guard area during an innings break, while India were batting.<\/p>\n "He marked the crease, something he's done his entire career, which no one's ever blinked at … anyone that knows Smithy knows that's what he does and there was nothing to it, yet it was a front-page news story," Clarke said.<\/p>\n "So anything Steve Smith touches, and David Warner for that matter and Cameron Bancroft, because of what happened in South Africa with Sandpapergate, it's going to create absolute chaos; for Steve Smith personally and for the team.<\/p>\n "Players in the team were saying Smithy was distraught with the media backlash about what happened. Well if he's distraught about that, you take over the captaincy of Australia, it's coming every second day.<\/p>\n "It's another massive incident I don't think Smithy needs in his life, Australian cricket certainly doesn't need it and unfortunately, because of what's happened a couple of years ago, it seems like anything he does, it's just going to be it's written in bold, it's going to be a massive headline.<\/p>\n "If that the case, I actually think whether Smithy gets asked to captain Australia again or not, he might even decide not to do it. He mightn't want that.<\/p>\n "He might think, 'You know what, it's best for me and the team just to make as many runs as I can and help Australian cricket have success that way, and I can be a leader in my own right without having the 'c' or the 'vc' beside my name'.<\/p>\n "If Pat Cummins is going to take over the captaincy, he's going to need senior players like Smithy, like Davey Warner, like Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon; he's going to need these guys to have his back as well.<\/p>\n "I don't think they can go back to Steve Smith. If they think it's time for Painey to stand down, then I think Pat Cummins has shown he's ready."<\/p>\n For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pat Cummins should be the Australian captain-in-waiting for all three formats as incumbent skippers Tim Paine and Aaron Finch struggle to hold their jobs. That's […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27502"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27502"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27504,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27502\/revisions\/27504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n