Australia captain Michael Clarke will retire at the end of the current Ashes series, bringing a dismal end to a storied 114-Test career, Channel Nine reported on Saturday.
- Clarke should be prepared to hear the death knell of his Test career
- 'More than half of this Aussie team might not play Test cricket again'
Time looked to be running out for Clarke after he failed again with the bat on Friday as his team slid towards a humiliating Ashes defeat.
The Australian newspaper said Clarke had been told there would be no place for him in the side after the fifth Test at the Oval and so Clarke had decided to retire from Test cricket.
Clarke stopped playing Twenty20 cricket for his country after taking over the Test captaincy from Ricky Ponting in 2011 and played his final one-day match for Australia in the World Cup final triumph earlier this year.
On Friday, leaden-footed and ill at ease at the crease, Clarke eked 13 grudging runs from 37 deliveries before being caught in the slips off seamer Mark Wood on day two of the fourth Test.
His wicket all but ensured England will be spared from batting again at Trent Bridge, while hastening an inevitable 3-1 series defeat for the outclassed tourists.
The scratchy 13 followed Clarke's first innings 10, which ended with an absurd swipe at a loose Stuart Broad delivery when his team desperately needed a cautious captain's knock rather than a free-wheeling assault befitting a tail-end slogger.
Clarke now averages 16.71 for the series, the worst performer among Australia's recognised batsmen who have played more than two Tests in the series.
Were Clarke to drill harder into the figures, he might note an unedifying similarity to the dismal returns Ponting managed in his last Test series as captain, when he averaged 16.14 from eight innings in the 2010/11 Ashes series.
Though 34, badly out of form and trailing 2-1 in the series, Clarke was strident on the eve of the Nottingham Test that the Ashes would not be his swan-song, win or lose.
