After capturing three quick wickets that broke the back of the English team on the first day of the Headingley game, Stuart Clark said that he had feared that his international career was all but over. This, he said he thought was due to his extended problems with injury which kept him out and was concurrent to the rise of the other bowlers like Mitchell Johnson, Peter Siddle and the others.
Clark said that there were quite a few moments when he thought that ‘his career might have passed him by.’
He said that he had the usual thought process that cricketers have when they are injured; will I play again? He also said that he had to learn to deal with that and wait for his chances. Drawing an analogy, Clark added that Brett Lee is in a similar position right now, and that when the other bowlers bowl well, there isn’t much that one could do about it.
Clark had bowled with his usual impeccable lines and lengths on the first day of the game, and scalped the wickets of Alastair Cook, Paul Collingwood and Stuart Broad, before Peter Siddle returned to capture five wickets. Earlier, he hadn’t played in the first three test matches, firing off much debated amongst the experts about his exclusion.