THE LAST OF THE GANG TO DIE

For some cricketers it is the eyesight that goes, for others it is their hand-eye co-ordination, their speed through the air, or zip off the pitch. Of all the things that could have failed Michael Clarke first, it was always going to be his back. Like Michael Atherton before him, Clarke looks like a man who has been labouring under a burden that would make Atlas bow. Both endure chronic problems, the roots of which started to spread long before they became captain, but for both, too, their injuries seem apt, almost an immediate consequence of the environment they worked in. Like a coalminer's cough, or a piano mover's stoop.

Clarke's own form was the single most important factor in his team's unbeaten run through five successive series, a streak which came to an end only when they lost the third Test against South Africa at the Waca last December. Here's a statistic that should bring you up short: since he became captain he has scored 20% of all Australia's runs. Like so many Australian records, you have to go back to Don Bradman to beat it. In recent times the equivalent figure for Ricky Ponting is 15%, for Steve Waugh 12%, Mark Taylor 13%, and Allan Border 15%. Australia have had 26 century partnerships since Clarke took charge, and he has been involved in 14 of them, with nine different players. He is a man in search of allies.

In January 2012 Clarke made 329 not out against India at the SCG, and then declared when he was within 52 runs of breaking Australia's top Test score. Some were suspicious, reckoning it a phoney show of humility. After that, Clarke unravelled a string of pearls as pretty as any in the history of cricket, a run of 210, 259*, 230, 106, and 130 in the space of just 20 innings.

As they watched him do it, those who had criticised him before began to forget his trespasses against their own preconceptions about what a great Australian cricketer should be; the underwear modelling, the matches he missed when his girlfriend's father passed away, and again when he broke up with her. His form was so fine that they even forgave the snap he tweeted last May of his new bride riding a white horse along a beach while he, in his wedding suit, held the reins in one hand and her high heels in the other.

Clarke, once booed by his own fans on his home ground, proved himself to be the scion of Australia's golden generation, whose ranks were thinning around him. How keenly he must feel the absence of his old team-mates. Since he became captain only three pairs of batsmen have scored more than 1,000 runs together. First among them are Clarke and Mike Hussey, who averaged 81 together. Third are Clarke and Ricky Ponting, who averaged 80 as a partnership in that time. Ponting retired in November, Hussey in January. Clarke must feel a little like Paul McCartney did when he woke up one day and realised that Linda and Denny Laine were filling the spots where John, George and Ringo used to be.

In all that time, only one other pair of batsmen have managed to make even half as many runs as Clarke and Hussey did together. They were the opening combination of David Warner and Ed Cowan, who put on 1,282 runs together in 28 innings at an average of 46. Right now, Warner is out of the team because of his misbehaviour under the old manager, and Cowan is out of it because he doesn't have the confidence of the new one. After Clarke those same four men – Hussey, Ponting, Warner and Cowan – are the leading run-scorers of his time in charge. Two have retired and two have been dropped.

Alone at the barricades when Australia are batting, Clarke also looks to impose himself on the game when the team are in the field. As a bowler, despite his bad back, he has delivered more overs and taken more wickets than any other spinner in his side apart from Nathan Lyon.

Tactically, he is the most innovative and exciting captain to play Test cricket since Stephen Fleming retired. Against West Indies last year he became the second skipper in history to win a match after declaring behind in the first innings. Then there are his gutshot bowling changes, the single over he gave Shane Watson early on at Lord's, a trick he often played with Hussey when he was still in the side. Watson dismissed Alastair Cook, and Hussey once got Kumar Sangakkara when he was well set. In a different match against Sri Lanka Clarke even gave the ball, only 10 overs old at the time, to his wicketkeeper, Matthew Wade.

It is bold stuff, and stirring to watch. But it betrays his belief that the best way, maybe the only way, Australia will get the job done is if he has a hand in it himself. For all his qualities there is one thing missing from his captaincy. He has been unable to spur the best out of his team in the manner that, for instance, Cook, so staid and conservative a captain in comparison, managed to in Ahmedabad last winter. Cook made 176 in England's nine-wicket defeat. He proved to his team that it was possible to score against the Indian spinners, and at the same time he showed them the best way to do it.

Partly that is just because of the quality of players surrounding the two captains. Certainly it is the coach's fault as much as it is Clarke's. But he has fallen out with too many players in the past for the spat with Shane Watson to be considered anything other than symptomatic of his ability as a man-manager. Andrew Symonds stopped talking to him, Simon Katich tried to throttle him. Australia didn't bring back Brad Haddin because he was a better bat than Wade, he is not, but because they felt Clarke needed a lieutenant who could help him control the team.

Stuck in a losing side, Clarke has simply doubled and redoubled his own efforts. As his batting has gone from strength to strength, that of everyone around him has fallen away, as the team have got weaker he has played harder, and better, than he has ever done before. No wonder he is so frustrated with the likes of Watson, who couldn't even be bothered to complete the little tasks Mickey Arthur asked of him in India.

Clarke inherited so much from the great players he grew up alongside. He has the steadfast stubbornness of Ponting, the aggressive, imaginative streak of Shane Warne, and the relentless work ethic of Justin Langer. But one thing he never learned was how to manage players who aren't as good as he is. He never needed to, because the only men who made it into those Australian sides were the ones who already had the talent, or the drive, or both, to cut it. They were reliable because they were self-reliant, in the way that Clarke is and Watson, who has neglected to fix the obvious flaws in his technique, is not.

It seems unfair to hold one man accountable for the faults of the players around him. His team have leaned too heavily on him, he has every right to expect more support in return than he has been given. But they have refused to follow his lead. Clarke, one of the best on-the-field captains the game has seen in a generation, would be a great leader of a strong team. But right now Australia need a captain who can bring the best out of his team-mates as well as himself. He has a week to figure out how to do something he seems to be constitutionally incapable of. His method has been to load more and more on his own shoulders. He is such a good player that he has almost pulled it off. But it is not surprising that the strain is starting to show.

This is an extract taken from the Guardian's weekly cricket email, The Spin. To subscribe, click here.