Well, how quickly things happen these days! We had been talking about the ‘possibility’ of Mitchell Johnson retiring after he had made a few noises before the start of the second Test. I have to say I am slightly surprised at the speed of the decision but, at the same time, I am not surprised because, logically, it all makes sense.
I do believe that when a player is thinking about retirement, they are already more than halfway there, and if the lights are being dimmed they can very quickly be turned out. Johnson’s pace was down a fair bit during the first and second Tests, and it becomes mentally very tough for a player when they are not quite where they used to be.
As I wrote last week, he came over to England last summer with the Australians as red-hot favourites to win the Urn, but within a matter of weeks the side that he had enjoyed so much success with was depleted, with old team-mates retiring. It’s a new era for Aussie cricket and Johnson will have felt that aura change in the dressing room.
But what a servant he has been for the game. Kids wanted to bowl like him, he took fast bowling to another level and I’ve never seen anyone bowl the way he did against England Down Under two years ago. Without him, Australia were certainly not winning that series 5-0 and I would go as far as to say that if he had been playing for England, he would have destroyed the Aussie batsmen, too.
What probably made Johnson’s decision to call time on his career even easier was watching Mitchel Starc tear in, bowling at the speed of light at the other end. Starc clocked 99.7mph at the WACA.
Starc is a great bowler and he will get better, but he’s no Johnson yet. The ability to bowl quick is one thing, but the ability to seriously intimidate batsmen is another and Starc doesn’t quite have the bouncer to do that. Yes, he can get the ball right up to a batsman’s nostrils, but I am talking about that throat ball that rears up and leaves a player fending in no-man’s land. He will learn this, and maybe with the title of Australia’s new chief marksman, he will take it on and develop quicker.
For me, facing fast bowling is something I had to learn quickly growing up in Perth and playing early State cricket at the WACA – and I am talking here when that pitch was at its brutal best. I enjoyed the challenge, but that’s not to say I didn’t feel the odd bit of fear here and there.
There are a number of spells I can recall. Facing Brett Lee and an up-and-coming Pat Cummins stand out, but away from Australia the one that really lives with me was Dale Steyn in Durban back in 2009. Under lights, he was tearing in and myself and Mike Hussey were at the crease. It was quick, and there was a lot of chat going on and I could actually see the fear in Huss’s eyes.
For me, there are two levels of quick bowling: there’s 140 to the late 140s (I’m talking kph here), and then there is 150-plus. That’s a whole different level of pace, and that’s when you start to have the odd twitch. Mitch Johnson could get his pace up to that level; there will be a lot of batsmen around the world relieved he has decided to call it a day.
This piece originally featured in The Cricket Paper on Friday November 20, 2015
