While this year’s plaudits were going to David Warner and Steve Smith for their emergence in as genuine Test players, arguably 2014 very much belonged to Michael Clarke and Mitchell Johnson.
David Warner scored a truckload of runs, though this was really only for the first time in his career he strung so many good performances together. And as Steve Smith steamed past big Dave to be Australia’s most prolific batsman, Warner perhaps will feel that he finished the year with a whimper.
As for Steve Smith, there really is not much else to say about him. Scoring runs for fun, captaining like a boss, only 25 years of age, everything is looking rosy for Steve. Of course, these are but early days, and the real test will be when Smith is captaining a side that is not winning and he is struggling on the field to produce.
Coming back from adversity is very much a tale that Clarke and Johnson have had to tell and been able to overcome.
Nor have they simply come back better, but emerged as the best.
Mitchell Johnson is nothing if not the fairytale story of the Australian cricket team.
Let us return to those days immediately prior to the first Ashes Test at the Gabba in 2013, a bloke who was washed up and had not played a single Ashes Test in England. He was under pressure – career-threatening pressure.
One of the greater writers in Australian journalism, Malcolm Knox, even wrote at length asking why we thought to deceive ourselves to go back to the dried up well that was picking Johnson in the Test side.
That generally shared opinion that built up the pressure appears to have created perhaps 12 months of some of the best bowling an Australian player has ever produced. From the Gabba Test to the first Test against South Africa at Centurion, Johnson produced six Tests of pure bowling domination that I doubt will ever be re-produced again. Certainly not in my lifetime.
Fearsome, ruthless, disciplined, talented and productive, qualities and characteristics that often appear in isolation, or together for maybe a single innings.
But they are rarely seen by one man for six consecutive Tests.
Now to be sure, Johnson perhaps has not fired as well against India, and struggled along with the rest of the Australian bowlers against Pakistan.
But herein lies the twist.
The genius displayed by Johnson against England and South Africa ultimately worked against him to the extent that the expectations upon him as the year went on were perhaps unfair.
Nobody, not even Bradman at his peak, can dominate perpetually. Greatness sometimes is not always about being on top, but about coming back continually to show how great you are.
Which brings me to the Boxing Day Test against India.
The timing of the declaration is always easily criticised upon the conclusion of a match, depending upon the result. I am glad it was not a decision I had to make.
However within the match itself, Johnson showed that there now no longer exists any concern about his mental strength.
The perfect case in point is the absolute punishment that Johnson received from Virat Kohli in the second innings as the Australians dropped catches and could not remove another Indian partnership, one forged in the tradition of Laxman and Dravid.
Say what you like about Smith’s declaration, but the MCG match was lost during that partnership.
Yet Johnson came back from the beating he received from Kohli and came out firing in the fourth innings.
He did what he now does best. He proved that whenever he is at the top of his run up with the red cherry in hand, he will always be Australia’s go-to bowler when the match is on the line.
Nowhere was this more adequately shown than by the dismissal of Pujara. That over he bowled, exemplifying everything that makes the art of Test cricket bowling so extraordinary, is a modern day classic.
Johnson used guile, he changed it up, he drew the batsman in and, ultimately, he got the dismissal with the ball that was so perfectly delivered some have called it the fast bowler’s version of Shane Warne’s ball of the century.
Whereas Johnson started the year dominating a lame duck English batting line-up, he finished the year still able to bedazzle a hardened Indian batting line-up that, while not being able to win away from India, is much better than the overall match results suggest.
Hence why 2015 belonged to Johnson. He essentially started as he began – by dominating.
Yet Johnson must share the podium with one Michael Clarke, albeit with Clarke hobbling up the dais with some assistance.
Michael Clarke you ask? Really? The past-his-best, injured former captain who may barely make the world cup squad next month.
Didn’t he captain a two-nil series loss to Pakistan?
Didn’t he only scored two centuries all year? He averaged a meagre 35.75 for the year.
Certainly, Clarke has had more successful years both as a batsman and captain in terms of statistics. He’s played better. He’s been fitter.
But performances are all contextual. And I prefer to consider Michael Clarke’s year from a glass-half-full perspective.
For instance, Clarke had a 2014 where he sealed a 5-nil Ashes sweep, won a series in South Africa, attained the number one ranking for Australia in Tests, scored a match-winning and series clinching 161* against South Africa, scored an emotionally charged century against India in Adelaide.
He did it all with a broken shoulder and broken back, not to mention dodgy hammies.
This is somewhat ironic considering Clarke’s infamous warning to Anderson at he Gabba. Turns out somebody should have told Clarke to get ready for a ‘broken f—ing back and shoulder’.
Not able to walk because your back has seized up tighter than a vice? No problem. I’ll just stand at the crease, not move my feet, and swing the bat as much as possible.
That is genuinely breathtaking stuff.
And that toughness was displayed nowhere more perfectly than in the delivery of his eulogy at Phillip Hughes’ memorial service. Not many people, whether they be politicians, businessman, actors or humble sportsman, can say they momentarily spoke for an entire nation.
Michael Clarke can.
That 2014 glass is not half full. It is a cup that runneth over.
Johnson has come back from poor form to re-establish himself as Australia’s modern day MVP. Clarke not only came back from bad form both in 2006 and this year upon a dip in production, but he has beaten a deteriorating body and his initial poor public image.
I can only sit and marvel at what that man has overcome as a player, captain and person in a year that has had nose bleeding highs and soul crushing lows.
So in a relatively successful year for Australian cricket, two individuals stand taller than the rest.
The Australian men’s team has by no means become the complete package. So many questions remain.
But if you ask me, there are still two stars who we should be overtly thankful for. And by singling out only two, that by no means is meant as a slight on the performance of any other player.
The centuries of Warner, the runs of Smith, the Adelaide performance by Nathan Lyon, these are only overshadowed by players who reached even higher levels.
There really are so many great performances by many players to be applauded, but two particular players should keep the standing ovation going a touch longer.
Michael Clarke and Mitchell Johnson take a bow. You’ve done Australia proud.
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