Clarke issued 'please explain'

Michael Clarke is likely to lose his fight to play in the first Test against India but faces a far bigger and more significant struggle to regain the trust of Cricket Australia and its selectors following the events of the past week, which have seen the captain and the board at odds over his fitness.

Clarke's single-minded quest to play in the first Test of the summer has left a trail of equal parts confused and furious CA officials, coaches and selectors in its wake, while the contrivances of the grade game he had chosen to prove his availability are now under investigation. It remains to be seen whether the selectors, including the chairman Rod Marsh and the coach Darren Lehmann, can still work with him.

An announcement ruling Clarke out of the Gabba was expected on Tuesday, but was put to one side by events at the SCG, where Phillip Hughes was felled by a bouncer and taken to hospital for emergency surgery. Clarke drove to St Vincent's Hospital to be at Hughes' side, but only after being asked to explain why he had defied the selectors over how he would prove his fitness for Brisbane.

James Sutherland, the CA chief executive, will ask for a "please explain" from Clarke about why he continued to plan for a grade appearance with Western Suburbs this Saturday despite advice to the contrary from the national selectors.

"I will speak to Michael and others who have been involved in the process to make sure I understand where these things have gone awry," Sutherland told The Age.

"It's not really appropriate for me to go into any more detail. All I can say is I am concerned that there are some mixed messages coming out of Cricket Australia in the last 24 hours or so and I want to understand why things have fallen off the rails a bit there."

ESPNcricinfo understands that Clarke had been informed as early as Wednesday last week of the selectors' desire to have him play the two-day match against the Indians at Adelaide Oval from Friday. Yet Western Suburbs still went into the club fixture intent on making sure Clarke could bat in Sydney on the second Saturday.

The efforts of the club's captain Jeff Cook to ensure this eventuality took an extreme form, declaring at 0 for 17 and effectively surrendering the first innings to Paramatta. That day's events are to be investigated by Cricket New South Wales at the conclusion of the round.

After the weekend's events, Clarke was to be named by the selectors in the squad for the Gabba on the condition that he proved his fitness by playing in Adelaide. But Clarke still hung on to the view that he should be allowed to test his hamstring out via the Sydney grade game.

So when the chairman of selectors Rod Marsh announced the team and stated that the captain needed to play the two-day game, Clarke was at the SCG preparing on a schedule that would have him ready to appear for Western Suburbs on Saturday. He then said as much later that afternoon at a promotional appearance in Sydney, directly contradicting the words of Marsh.

On Tuesday morning, Clarke did so again, saying he still expected to be fit for Brisbane. "I really hope I'm fit and I'm there to captain Australia," Clarke said on Nine's Today Show. "If I'm not, then I think Brad Haddin the vice-captain should definitely takeover the captaincy.

Clarke went on to say that he had no plans to retire in the next 12 months. "My goal is to continue to play for Australia for a lot longer; I love both forms of the game. I want to continue to play both forms of the game.

"Once you get past the age of 30, I think naturally there's always talk about who's going to be next, how long you play for. I probably experienced the other side of that as vice-captain. People should be looking and thinking about who is going to take that role once I'm either dropped or not selected, or I retire."

Experienced players, coaches and officials around the country have not seen anything quite like the events of the past week.