I'm 28, some of my earliest memories of Cricket are of Warne's first Test, and before that guys like Mike Whitney, Craig McDermott and Merv Hughes. Until recently, all I'd known of Cricket was Australian domination.
This series is like nothing I've seen, though. Clarke has somehow pulled a champion team out of his behind - look at how low we had fallen by the end of Ponting's captaincy. Since then, we've broken even with South Africa, beaten Sri Lanka, and somehow lost a Test to New Zealand. As you have to expect with a rebuilding team, there have been a couple of mis-steps. 48 was bad, Bellerieve was shameful. But those have been the exceptions. Under Clarke, we have assemebed a truly world-class pace attack that Viru described as the best he has faced. Our top 6 are starting to look very, very imposing - when Watson comes back we'll be in the best shape we've been in for a long time. We look to have unearthed an opening partnership that is balanced and dangerous. The middle order is compiling insane amounts of runs. Warner - Cowan - Watson - Ponting - Clarke - Hussey has the potential to be the best top 6 in world Cricket over the next 18 months. That is the top 6 that can win us The Ashes.
Not all of this due to Clarke, but what we're seeing now has been in the works since he took over. Aurthur and Inverarity complete the picture. Clarke's own batting is a big part of this turn around, and he seems to have lifted Ponting and Hussey around him - those two should now be planning and expecting to bat through the Ashes next year. Clarke insisted those two stay in the team.
For most players, I think you can say that respect for them as players and whether you think they are a good bloke are two sepearate things, but I think it's different for the captain. If you're a shit bloke, you probably won't succeed as captain because you won't be able to effectively unite the team behind yourself. I reckon the whole team and nearly everyone involved in Australian Cricket is 100% behind Clarke.
I don't know how anyone could not respect him at this point.