Michael Clarke drowns his Lara Bingle sorrows

"He's a pretty tough customer so he's going to come back and want to do well for Australia''.

He flight leaves Sydney at 8.45am.

News of his departure comes as The Daily Telegraph can reveal Clarke drowned his sorrows at 1.30am yesterday in one of Sydney's hippest clubs. the Establishment bar, after enduring one of the worst weeks of his life.

He had broken up with his girlfriend, the Aston Martin he had given her sits in a car yard and plumbers had just spent the day dredging the sewer looking for a "small but valuable" piece of jewellery - possibly a $200,000 five-carat engagement ring.

Then a young woman asked Clarke for a photo.

"We couldn't believe that he was even there but my friend went up and asked him if she could take his photograph," a friend who did not want to be identified said.

"He ... said no, he didn't want to be photographed."

The woman moved away and took the photo anyway - but was spotted. Clarke shouted across the bar for her to delete the picture as others watched in amazement.

"It got quite heated and the guy with Clarke said he was going to have us thrown out but we'd done nothing wrong and there was no way my friend was going to hand over the camera or delete the photo," the woman said.

She said more words were exchanged before security arrived and calmed the scene, then Clarke and his entourage left.

"It seems the incident ended amicably," an Establishment spokesman said yesterday.

Clarke rang his manager Chris White yesterday to tell him of the incident, and through White confirmed it to The Daily Telegraph.

As the drama unfolded, the Aston Martin V8 Vantage Clarke gave his former fiancee Lara Bingle as a lavish gift is up for sale at Rick Damelian's Petersham car yard for the price of $219,000.

"It's Lara Bingle's car ... it's an impressive thing," a dealership salesman said, adding the Vantage was being sold on consignment but was not in Clarke's name.

Back at Clarke's Bondi beachside pad, plumbers will today sift through the sewage pit under the apartment block for a small item, believed to be Bingle's $200,000 engagement ring, after first arriving on Saturday at 3am to plunge the block's pipes.

Although Bingle's agent Max Markson said the ring was safe and well, a spokesman at Twin Pipes plumbing confirmed they would continue the search for an item of jewellery today.

A spokesman for the company said plumbers visited the building at 3am on Saturday, because it is best to search drainage systems "when the building is asleep".

He said the sewage pit would be manually pumped out to see if there is anything sitting at the bottom.