Editorial: How much is too much?

OPINION: Cricket aficionados may initially dispute this, but the MCC is clearly in town, the town in this instance being Wellington.

No, not the Marylebone Cricket Club – they of the blazers and diagonally striped ties in yellow and orange – the Michael Clarke Circus.

Because that's what arrived in Wellington yesterday, or at least part of it did, being joined on this side of the Tasman by some locally-based members of the travelling ensemble and Aussie media already in the country.

Perhaps it's a risky thing for a member of the mainstream media to be taking issue with the way the whole Clarke saga is being handled, given that some of those stories are running in this newspaper, but one has to ask whether the furore over Clarke is justified.

In other words, is there really the appetite out there among the general public to know every word Clarke says to media on every day of the remainder of this tour?

In the simplest possible terms, he is a gifted cricketer who happens to have been engaged to a woman one Australian columnist described as "famous for the most important reason known to Gen [Generation] Y – being famous", but is no longer that young woman's betrothed.

Of course, they were an Australian glamour couple, they lived in a $A6 million apartment in Bondi, they graced the pages of newspapers and magazines and so, of course, there is a high degree of interest in them.

That's exacerbated by the fact that Clarke hopped the Tasman not long into the one-day series with New Zealand to go and sort out problems at home related to the alleged circulating of a picture by Lara Bingle's former lover, AFL star Brendan Fevola. Turned out he was heading home to end the engagement.

A sensational story, undoubtedly, but for how long? Is the presence in New Zealand of Clarke going to mean the New Zealand public are simply deluged with news about the Australian vice-captain over the next two weeks?

Probably, though clearly the appetite for news about the newly single star is largely being driven from Australia.

And, more importantly for those justifiably more concerned with how the Black Caps go against Australia, is it going to overshadow a hugely important test series for both teams?

Of course this is newsworthy and one can understand the circus the story has turned into. It does raise the concern, though, that things could turn ugly at the tests, with crowds buying into the whole saga a little too enthusiastically. Nobody minds good-natured banter, especially when there's a trans-Tasman rivalry being played out on the field, but it would be regrettable if things got beyond that due to Clarke's situation.

At the end of the day, he's here to play cricket. Hopefully he'll be allowed to do that.

- © Fairfax NZ News