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My intention, prior to the events of the final day at the WACA, was to pass comment on the search for every titbit of information that leads to stories being created that aren’t anything of the kind.
I’m talking about Mitchell Starc bowling the quickest delivery ever recorded on a notoriously unreliable piece of equipment (Tim Southee was clocked at 150 kilometres per hour in the same game, say no more), and Ross Taylor not being offered a single handshake as he left the field following his epic innings of 290.
On the first point, it has little if any impact when the opposition are piling up in excess of 600, and with regards to the second, who actually cares?
If no Australian could be bothered to congratulate Taylor then that is a different matter entirely but I’d be astonished if, whenever it may have been, he wasn’t offered some praise for his efforts.
Instead, Mitchell Johnson is the focus – and rightly so.
After the initial shock of a cricketer having the appalling audacity to quit his job midway through a series (don’t bite!) some appreciation of his career is in order.
It is all too easy, in the immediate aftermath of a retirement or career closing, to let the hyperbole run riot.
The title of ‘great’ is bestowed readily, often as a first port of call, and Johnson occupies a more than worthy category that resides underneath.
Glenn McGrath is a great, Curtly Ambrose is a great, Dennis Lillee is a great; high-class fast bowlers who married consistency to penetration over a lengthy period.
This is by no means intended to demean Johnson, a fine practitioner who, on occasion, touched the heights of superstardom.
His performances in the 2013-14 Ashes, even for an Englishman, were something to behold and while he didn’t singlehandedly win the series, it wasn’t a million miles from it.
I took a rather perverse kind of pleasure in seeing raw pace – the quickest some of the England players had faced by their own admission – dominate games, and to come back from the derision he had suffered when his ability decided to go AWOL for a time emphasised the character necessary for the job he did.
To see a professional sportsman at a decidedly low ebb, as Johnson was in 2009, respond with such style and panache, will forever be referred to when his time in the spotlight is being assessed. It wasn’t coincidence that his high spots came about when he was utilised properly.
The eight Tests that incorporated the Ashes and the subsequent series in South Africa represented something of a perfect storm in which Johnson was the eye.
A captain and coach who recognised just how he should be used, fellow seamers in Ryan Harris and Peter Siddle who could provide the necessary parsimony from the other end, and a handful of surfaces that encouraged the pace and bounce any fast bowler worth their salt would be encouraged by.
Brisbane and Centurion stand out for the way a pair of decent batting line-ups were blown aside, and with a hold over those stood in the way the path was cleared for the triumphs that followed.
It would be a touch glib to suggest that Johnson only succeeded when everything fell in his favour, as in excess of 300 Test wickets at under 30 apiece is not the record of a mug by any means.
Maybe it’s just that any graph of his career would show a line that didn’t adhere to a constant path, but that’s hardly a criminal offence and very few manage such a level of output.
It is a measure of his standing within the game that there will be a few batsmen the world over glad to see the back of the West Australian left-armer, and the Australian team, certainly in the short term, will be weaker for his absence.
As for the timing of his retirement, it is for the man himself to decide when enough is enough. It is a tough job when your mind is fully on the task at hand, but if the fight is gone then it really is better to say ‘no more’.
As the reflection and summations begin, the plaudits will far outweigh the criticism, and that is exactly how it should be.
Good on him.