Most Australians would’ve woken up this morning, flicked on the TV before going to school or work, and seen a 10-second clip of four Mitchell Johnson wickets.
In isolation, granted, they were good nuts. But you needed to be up at about 11.30pm last night to get the whole picture, to encapsulate how special what you were watching was, to appreciate how painstakingly brutal Mitchell Johnson was.
As I saw Johnson burst through a high five from David Warner, and then leap into the arms of a swarm of happy Australians, I thought of the Ashes.
I thought of those nasty, quick, searing bouncers at the tail, the quick in-dippers to the batsman – the sight of Johnson exulting, with a look of venom, is always great to watch.
He’s happy when he takes wickets, but in the mould of Dale Steyn, it’s a fierce roar that defines his celebration.
No smile. He doesn’t need to.
I can’t remember such a sustained spell of fast bowling. And that ‘fast’ needs to be emphasized, because it was consistent, brutal fast bowling.
Maybe the GABBA spell late on on day two comes close for it’s brutal nature, but that was at a scared England tail. This was the world’s best top order. Dismantled with shear awesome pace.
Graeme Smith went to pull. Then he went to defend. Then he just covered his head to prevent injury. The ball hit his bat rather than the other way round. At least he didn’t break his hand.
Alviro Peterson just didn’t want to hang around. He saw his captain try to avoid being killed, so maybe his thinking was to hit out instead.
But as a strange mysterious man with the twitter handle @KP24 tweeted: “When you facing someone as quick as Mitchell, your instinct occasionally makes you do things you shouldn’t.. PACE causes indecision!”
Then it was Faf Du Plessis’s turn. Unflappable Faf. Measured Faf. Out Faf.
A nasty riser that zipped and spat and flew to Michael Clarke. 3-23.
Then Mitch wasted a good ball on poor old Ryan McLaren, a little angler back through his shoddy defences. 4 down.
Johnson’s over to Du Plessis before hand was hair raising, and it is a lot of this that goes unnoticed.
Most people just see the wickets, but Johnson’s sheer pace and brutality shook South Africa, and to fully appreciate how good it was, you needed to see every ball.
Every delivery that flew past a nose. Every ball zipping past a hesitant outside edge. Every bumper that put something in the back of 11 South African minds.
Brutal, fantastic, quick, scary. And I was lucky enough to witness it all.
I’ll just be a little blurry eyed for school this morning. A price worth paying.
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