It’s the post-lunch session on the second day of the First Ashes Test in Brisbane, 2013. In the 37th over, Michael Clarke asks Mitchell Johnson to go round the wicket to Michael Carberry: Johnson steams in and darts a short delivery into his rib cage. Carberry looks to fend it away, but misses and is struck. The next ball is another menacing bouncer, Carberry tries to be brave, takes up the challenge, looks to pull but is beaten by the searing pace. The England opener had looked solid against Johnson up till that point and was well set on 40, but the change in angle makes him look callow.
The next ball? You guessed it. Carberry is comprehensively dismissed. A back-of-a-length ball into his body, he looks to fend it away, but then takes away his bat at the last moment and ends up edging the cherry to the slip cordon.
A revitalised Johnson is at his fiery best and uneasiness starts to creep into England’s batting. Nathan Lyon cashes in on the nervousness to remove Ian Bell and Matt Prior in the next over. After a couple of short deliveries to Joe Root in his next six, Johnson angles across a full delivery, Root drives away from his body and is caught in the slips.
The same tactic works against Graeme Swann in his next over. After a couple of short deliveries, Swann inside edges one to short leg expecting a third short one which never arrived. From 87/3 to 91/8, England’s downfall is scripted by a hostile spell of fast bowling from Johnson. Stuart Broad is hit flush on the helmet after tea, chins and heads are further targeted and the English batsmen are left hopping around as if trying to save their lives. The panic button is pressed and England are paralysed. They are killed in Brisbane, demolished in the next three Tests and buried in Sydney. Johnson was back and so was the fear factor in the gentleman’s game.
In the 2013-14 Ashes, a revitalised Johnson had revived the fear-factor that had went missing since the days of Larwoods and Lillees, Thompsons and Holdings, Donalds and Akhtars. In between there were glimpses of intimidation from the likes of Brett Lee, Andrew Flintoff and Dale Steyn but not on consistent basis.
Watching Johnson bowl in that Ashes series was fascinating. The sight of a fast bowler steaming in and leaving the batsmen rattled gives you the ultimate adrenaline rush. Since that Gabba Test, every time Johnson bowled there was a sense of excitement. The re-birth of Johnson had made fast bowling fun and exciting to watch again.
Back in 2008-09, three years into his international career, Johnson had shown glimpses of his havoc-creating abilities when he ripped apart South Africa and left Graeme Smith with broken hand – twice. But then, his career was marred by injuries and then to a greater extent inconsistencies. The family problems didn’t help.
He was ridiculed by the Barmy Army at the Gabba in 2011. “He bowls to the left, he bowls to the right, that Mitchell Johnson, his bowling is s****”, was sung with much gusto as Johnson endured one of the worst matches of his career, ending up with figures of 0 for 170 from 42 overs.
Later he admitted that the he was affected mentally and had to speak to Australia’s team psychologist about how to deal with it. By 2013, the wheel had officially turned.
Every time he went down, the world thought Johnson was finished, but every time he bounced back in style. He came back to haunt England at the same ground where he was ridiculed. There were moments where there were confidence problems but he had a tremendous will power which kept him going. He worked on his action, added an extra yard of pace and increased his accuracy – his biggest enemy. A bouncer can be deadly but an accurate bouncer can be bone-chilling. And an accurate disconcerting bouncer was Johnson’s lethal weapon.
In an era where most fast bowlers depended on swing and seam movement for wickets and even cut down on pace for accuracy (even Dale Steyn), Johnson did the opposite, he sharpened his most lethal tool and used it to great advantage in his last couple of years in international cricket.
Johnson, at first, relied on his outswingers, he then developed the inswinger that he used occasionally and he also had the slower cutter in his armoury. He was astute with the use of his short deliveries and it was his bouncers that helped him get the wickets off the full, length and good length deliveries.
He had mastered the art of setting up a batsman. The best example being his spell to Cheteshwar Pujara at the MCG in December last year where he rattled him with a barrage of bouncers including one which hit him flush on the helmet and then cleaned him up with a beautiful cuttter – the ball of the series. That he managed to intimidate the batsmen even on the slow Indian pitches ( The spell of 4/46 against India in Mohali in 2013 where he bounced out Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh and Ravindra Jadeja) was a testament to Johnson’s prowess with the short ball.
He was shy off the field, he often smiled but on the field, he instilled fear in minds of the batsmen.
“It doesn’t matter how much protection you put on, it’s a mental game,” Michael Holding once told ABC.net.
“You can put on all the helmets, all the chest guards and whatever else you want. But when you’re there and see a ball coming toward your head, that affects your mind.
“They still create havoc. They create a situation where people aren’t even sleeping well at night, they’re thinking about having to face you the next day, “he added. And this was the sort of impact Johnson exactly created.
“I wouldn’t want to be batting against Mitchell Johnson,” was Holding’s answer when asked who would he rather face — Johnson or Steyn.
In his autobiography, Kevin Pietersen revealed how Johnson sent shudders through the England dressing room, how the England batsmen were scared and how he feared for his life during the Ashes.
“I was sitting there, thinking: I could die here in the f**king Gabbattoir,” Pietersen wrote of the moments after Jonathan Trott’s dismissal. “You very seldom hear people in your own team saying that they are physically scared, but our tail-end batsmen were scared,” he wrote. “I heard (Stuart) Broad, (James) Anderson and (Graeme) Swann say they were scared. When you’ve got that, you know that a bloke in the other team is doing damage.
“Trotty was in shreds. The tail-enders were scared. (Alastair) Cooky was dithering. It was clear that Johnson was already a weapon that we had no answer to.”
As time progressed, the spells became shorter for energy conservaion and the intimidation level increased as he was able to ramp up extra pace. He could turn the match on its head in a spell. The spell on the fourth morning of the Gabba Test last year where a riled up Johnson removed Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane and Rohit Sharma in a fiery four-over spell broke India’s spine from which they never really recovered.
After a brilliant 2013-14 Ashes and the South Africa tour, he performances started to wane but he still had that impact in short bursts. It was his inconsistencies that robbed the cricket world of Johnson a bit early. His last Test pretty much encapsulated his roller-coaster career. On his adopted home ground – Waca- where he registered his best figures of 8/61 in an innings against South Africa in 2008, he also ended up with his most expensive figures of 1/157 in an innings by an Australian bowler at Waca, in his last match against New Zealand. He did come out firing in the second innings and showed glimpses of the old fiery Johnson.
Watching Steyn, Morkel, Anderson and of late Wahab bowl gave us joy but watching Johnson bowl at his peak was an altogether different experience – The one which gave you the ultimate excitement and adrenaline rush.
“Dale Steyn has been quick … but Johnson has exhibited a great deal more pace and a lot more aggression,” Holding told ESPNCricinfo. “Pace is the game changer. A lot of bowlers are brilliant, Glenn McGrath was a fantastic bowler, but he didn’t have the effect this man is having. With that much pace it’s all about ‘this man can hurt me as well as get me out’, and that changes the entire dynamic of the game.”
Johnson may not be spoken in the same breath as some of the greatest fast bowlers such as Glenn McGrath, Curtly Ambrose, Wasim Akram and so on but he will always be remembered for the impact he had on the field, for the moments he created and for the fear he induced into the batsman’s mind.
There was fear, then there was the captain asking the opposition batsmen to ‘Get ready for a broken f**kin’ arm’ and then there were the bone-chilling death-stares (ask James Anderson). With Johnson gone, the fear-factor might never be the same again.