I feared my career was over after the Adelaide Test: Clarke

On a comeback trail following a hamstring surgery, Australian captain Michael Clarke on Friday said he had feared his career was finished after the Adelaide Test against India.

The 33-year-old veteran will sit out Australia’s World Cup opener against traditional rival England on Saturday.

“When scans confirmed I had torn my hamstring [after the last day of the Adelaide Test against India] I thought I might just have played my last game of cricket,” Clarke was quoted as saying by the Sydney-based Daily Telegraph.

“I had suffered my fourth hamstring in six months and my back was flaring up. I had just scored a century in memory of my little ‘brother’ [Phillip Hughes, the Test player who died after being hit by a bouncer in a domestic game in November] in a winning Test side.

“If that was to be the end, I thought, I would have no regrets.”

Clarke said he had learnt to put his career worries in perspective following the death of Hughes and his father’s diagnosis of cancer in 2007.

“My attitude changed a lot. To that point I had been totally consumed by cricket. But that all turned upside down the day I learnt dad had Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

“It made me realise that in the grand scheme of life, cricket was just a game.”