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Sport can be a Labrador or a snarling Rotweiler. On the first day of the Lord’s Test Mitchell Johnson bowled with chivalry reminiscent of England’s last great bowler, Sir Francis Drake.
He was profligate to the point of reducing Ponting to gum-chewing apoplexy. Johnson fluffed his lines on the biggest stage of all.
Brad haddin, too, was overcome by the occasion and his work resembled a bag snatcher operating in peak hour Times Square.
Johnson’s waywardness was a throwback to Harmison in Brisbane. A reflection of a troubled soul.
There is something eating away within and it may well be his mother’s disapproval of his fiancee. Reprobation from loved ones can be twice as cutting as that from strangers. You don’t go from being a champion to a chump in one day.
Sport is littered with the fickleness of form. Greg Norman’s meltdown at Augusta and IBF’s shank at the British Open come readily to mind.
The brooding despair of Shaun Tait and Maradonna’s flirtation with cocaine are altogether more worrisome as they reflect a malaise in society. And it is not just modern society. Humanity has been afflicted with mood swings since that first fateful bite of the apple. The poisoned chalice as another bard put it.
The champion always fights his way out of the mire and it is a testament to man’s resilience he is able to do so. The records of Bradman, Lara, Lillee, Warne, Tendulkar and Ponting are all the more remarkable when one considers the personal upheavals that spare no one.
On a lighter note Strauss may have done Hauritz a favour. Because Nathan obviously bowls better with a dislocated spinning finger!
I owe the man an apology. He bowled with imagination and looked the most likely to curb a rampaging England side. He, along with the unheralded Hilfenhaus, have been Australia’s best bowlers.
A Test match is no place to tamper with technique and it was bewildering to see Ponting trying to catch with his fingers pointing up.
This is like a golfer tinkering with his golf swing during a major. Chest high and up it is fine to catch with the fingers to the sky. Anything from the waist down the fingers point to the ground. There is more on the captain’s mind than we know.
England have exposed the inexperience of Australia’s bowling and have left Hughes, Katich and company with a mountain to climb.
The last two days will prove if Australia can escape the confines of their self-imposed imprisonment. The pitch is playing true and Australia have no one to blame but themselves if they lose this Test.
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