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“Don’t call it a comeback, I’ve been here for years” – LL Cool J Mama Said Knock You Out.
Mitchell Johnson psychologically dismantling teams before they strap their pads on. Mitchell Johnson quietly brooding, comfortably holding the fortunes of two teams in his hands atop his run.
Mitchell Johnson, close to 34 and nearing 300 Test wickets, is the most influential cricketer in the world.
Contrast this with the Mitchell Johnson who served his apprenticeship as a 25-year-old permanent 12th man in the famous 2006-07 whitewash.
Contrast this with the world-conquering player who went to Lord’s in 2009 and so spectacularly lost his nerve.
Contrast this with a player who spent three years in cricketing no-man’s land at an age when most fast bowlers are feeling the shoulder taps of father time.
Mitchell Johnson, two years ago expected to shuffle into retirement as very good player who had a brief period of brilliance, now sits alongside Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Dennis Lillee as Australia’s greatest post-war bowlers.
Johnson comfortably joins that exalted crew in a composite team of the last 70 years.
***
Strictly speaking the Mitchell Johnson resurrection is not a comeback. Yes he had a toe injury, but he was playing for a lot of that time. Johnson was around, it just wasn’t the Johnson that had been building.
After the once-in-a-generation tags from Lillee, continual body breakdowns, eventual first class breakthrough and elongated apprenticeship in the national squad, early Johnson was relatively gentle.
The 12th man in 2006-07 among a team of legends, mixed with some old pros and confident young things, Johnson’s wide-eyed nature meant he seemed more 15 years old that 25.
It’s not uncharitable to say he was a boy in a man’s body, neither ingrained in Australian cricket nor streetwise for the world around him like we’d expect for a cricketer who’d been in the elite cricket since 17.
His long-awaited debut the following home season was auspicious, however after 12 months he exploded, producing a banner season in 2008-09 highlighted by his stunning performances against South Africa both home and away.
Not only was he now undisputed leader of the Australian attack, he was also making good on his promise with the bat. Twin unbeaten knocks of 96 and 123 confirmed that he was the most valuable stock in world cricket.
It would propel him to be named the 2009 ICC Test player of the year.
The world was at his feet. A dispute between his mother and finance was gorged upon by the English press as he hit Lord’s in 2009, and a horribly wayward morning of bowling started the derailment of a career.
Johnson’s personality was not like Warne’s in 2005. Whereas Warne channelled the off-field drama into a lionhearted medium for his on-field confidence to respond, Johnson’s rise had not changed him. He was still shy and slightly naïve to the big world.
Johnson’s agent was more protective than any other at the time, a chicken and egg argument that meant he might not have been becoming world weary as you’d expect despite being almost 30.
Johnson stood alone at Lord’s, ill-equipped to deal with outside pressures including a loss of form, boring eyeballs and loud taunts. Warne revelled, Johnson looked like he wanted to go home.
For all of the infamy of the Lord’s meltdown, he did manage to recover and have a respectable finish to the series, before finding his form back in Australia and ending the 2009-2010 summer with a match-winning 10-wicket haul in New Zealand. He crossed the 150 Test wicket barrier in just two and half years of combat.
The Lord’s affect was more symbolic in that it stamped him as fragile and susceptible. That if things were good he could be spectacular, if things weren’t right he could be spectacularly bad.
***
When Johnson was running at his 08-09 peak the introverted outlook gave the feeling he really had no idea how good he was and how good he could be. Lillee and Warne had body language that masked any insecurities, everything was part of their grand plan.
Johnson didn’t have a calculated sideshow to complement his explosive skills. Warne and Lillee’s bluff and craft rode them through tough patches, when Johnson hit that tough patch, there was no mask, he was naked as bowler with no rhythm and no confidence.
The fall before the rise can be traced to after that March 2010 Test against New Zealand. While we fretted about an engagement ring being flushed down a toilet, our weapon was about to become impotent.
For three long years Johnson went from talisman to the wilderness. Between March 2010 and November 2013 Johnson played just 17 of 46 Tests. In those Tests he took just 50 wickets at an unflattering 39.9. Warne, Lillee and McGrath never had periods like that lasted more than a series let alone three years.
As always he was able to produce scintillating bursts, like he did in Perth to pinch a Test in Australia’s 2010-11 Ashes debacle. But that played into the stereotype of Johnson being either rocks or diamonds. Take out that Test and he took 41 wickets at 54.66 in three years.
That isn’t career on a tightrope stuff. For mere mortals, that’s a career two years too long.
Yes there was toe injury that wrecked a home summer, but the suspicion had been that toe injury was also coupled with a mental break, from which few players return.
Johnson did rediscover some fire in Tests against Sri Lanka in 2012-13 but by the time he was out of the side in India it was being written off as a late flurry against a weak opposition. He was 31 and with that three-year record things didn’t bode too well.
And then he forgot to do his homework.
In the whole Mohali debacle Johnson was the forgotten man, while Watson was vice-captain and James Pattinson and Usman Khawaja were the future-is-now-type prospects, Johnson was occupying cricket Siberia.
He wasn’t in the Test team and he didn’t look like getting back until a last Test reprieve when injuries meant he was the only option. 19 overs for a return of no wickets and a first ball duck in second innings of a three day loss didn’t give hope.
Homework-gate appeared to be the tolling bell on his Test career and he was merely a footnote amidst the Watson-Clarke maelstrom. He wasn’t picked for the 2013 Ashes tour – the nail in the coffin.
And that seemed logical. He was rising 32, his results illustrated a significant drop-off and the homework situation smacked of disillusionment that comes when the end is nigh. He’d play some one day cricket, he’d embrace the T20 circuit, he’d withdraw to playing on his terms, away from the spotlight that had seemed to trouble him over the previous three years.
He’d walk away as 200-wicket, 50-Test player, the same figures as Merv Hughes and Jeff Thompson. He’d walk away as an Aussie great. In fact, he’d be Thompson 30 years on, freakish ability that for a three year period made him among the world’s best players, not able to sustain that level of excellence through injury and form loss, but a great nonetheless with a well-stocked highlight reel.
What makes the resurrection so astounding is that everything we’d seen of Johnson made that outcome entirely predictable. He wasn’t a force of nature personality that would will himself back to the top.
Well, we didn’t think he was.
It’s now celebrated that he joined the losing 2013 Ashes tour for the one day international leg, fit and refreshed and scared the bejesus out of some England bats who were at the end of a tired tour and, perhaps justly, felt that that their job for the summer had been done. The lightning strike that was back-to-back Ashes series victories for England was what Johnson needed to capitalise upon.
The efforts in those one day games in a few months became the stuff of legend, a momentum was built out of the Australian camp that Johnson was back and England were worried. To outsiders this could have been dismissed as a hail-mary.
Really, are we so desperate that we’re pinning our hopes on someone three years north of his prime who we didn’t even deem to be in our best five quicks a few months back?
The rest is history. A moustached Johnson went out and made a half century with the bat, before producing that blistering Gabba spell that turned the Ashes and turned a career that was heading to the abyss. This new Johnson – with the symbolic mask that was shielding his prior insecurities – became the alpha dog.
He huffed and puffed. He changed from the shy and self-conscious to the brooding example of a man at the top of his game.
The symmetry as he stands at 299 wickets is unavoidable. Those 17 Tests during the three-year horror period, fold neatly with his Gabba 2013-onwards career that has totalled 17 Tests. Compared with 50 at 39.9, he’s taken 94 at 20.70 – a sustained period of excellence that stacks up with the best, considering that the bulk of those matches have been made up of big four countries England, India and South Africa.
Throw in over 500 runs at 26.95 and the man is a freak.
What he means to the Australian side is not merely reflected in individual statistics, for all the heroics of Steve Smith, Johnson is the most feared man in world cricket. In an era where pace bowling potency has severely dwindled, nearing 34, Johnson is bowling faster and straighter than ever, and the psychological effect he has on matches is immeasurable.
It is a delicious irony given once upon a time the major chink in his armour was his perceived psychological fragility. Winter 2013 spawned a monster that wreaked revenge on all those who’d perceived him soft by being the scariest man in the sport. The man exposing fragile techniques on a daily basis.
What is measurable is winning. On the eight occasions Johnson has taken six wickets or more in match in this period, Australia has won. On the five occasions Johnson has taken less than four wickets in a match, Australia has lost. These are the only four losses suffered during this period.
Johnson is the most dominant force that decides matches today, just like Warne, Lillee and McGrath were. 300 wickets franks his belonging in that fantasy quartet.
Johnson is the most influential cricketer in the world. Enjoy the once-in-a-generation player while we can.
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