Mitchell Johnson could be great left hope of Australian cricket. However at the moment the dude is a walking conundrum. He is built like a Jamaican sprinter. Can bowl quicker than most. Moves the ball. To me his action looks a little too much like a wind up bunny rabbit, its tight, whippy and it propels him in straight lines so I suppose it does its job. He seems to understand bowling. He is confident without being a dick about it.
However, there does seem to be two Mitchell Johnsons.
The first Johnson is all but unplayable. 140 clicks. Bouncy. Seam. And like all great left armers, huge swing. When he is this guy he storms in chest pumped out, slams the ball into the turf, is aggressive, confident and looks like he could sleep with virgins at will.
The other Johnson seems to bowl with all the brutality of Rick (Ricky) Ponting. No real swing or seam. Dead off the pitch and no real pace. There he seems to run in like a mid 90’s English first change bowler, shoulders hunched, placing the ball on the pitch, and getting smashed by average cricketers. Also dare I say it, impotent to promiscuous women?
Left arm fast bowlers are weird. No really they are. They are like pop stars. In the first 6 months you go, this guy looks really good, 3 years later you forget their names. Very few of them make the grade, but a lot of them get tried. They all seem to be tall, and look like they can take over the world, and then they disappear.
I saw Ashish Nehra bowl for India through out the 2003 world cup with Khan. His line and length really impressed me, he was tall, could move the ball looked like a real threat. I thought how good are these two left armers going to be. Khan the aggressor, and Nehra the silent assassin. Nehra is not even in the Indian team 4 years on, and hasn’t played an international match in over 2 years.
There are heaps of stories like this with left armers. South Africa had a blonde guy who was supposed to be amazing, disappeared without a shout. New Zealand have had a few that have looked good and gone. England had Alan Mullally (although he was an ass clown).
It’s up to Johnson whether he joins this list, or he joins the much smaller list of Akram, Vaas and Khan. To keep Australia on top of the rankings, you’d think he’d need to end up on this list. Cricketers of his talent don’t come around to often, but can he produce wickets on those all important five day games?
does this mean johnson has to grow a wispy bruce-reid mustache?
as much as i hope he would, its not likely hes a bit of a metro sexual.