With the exception of the sub-continent – where it is the dominant sport in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and in particular India – cricket doesn’t boast a huge following in Asia. That’s understandable. With American influences pervading much of the region, it makes sense that the American sports such as basketball and gridiron are among the most followed alongside the global phenomenon that is the English Premier League.
Nevertheless, cricket remains hugely popular in many places with England, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand leading the way. It is also played in the Caribbean where the West Indies were the best team in the world during the 1980s, thanks largely to their seemingly endless line of terrifyingly fast bowlers.
Much like a baseball pitcher who can hurl the ball at over 100 miles per hour, there is something special about a cricketer who can do the same. Sadly, they are few and far between these days and it’s fair to say it has been quite a while since the cricketing world has witnessed a bowler fast enough to put genuine fear into the batsmen who face him.
Yet that has all changed over the past few months thanks to Australian fast bowler Mitchell Johnson. Johnson has spent the Australian summer terrorizing England’s batsmen and did the same to South Africa over the weekend as Australia claimed a thumping win in the first Test against the team ranked number one in the world.
South African captain Graeme Smith trying to avoid another Mitchell Johnson thunderbolt
But it is the manner in which Johnson has bounced back after most thought his career was over that has been most impressive. The lanky Queenslander was always a bowler of great potential, but for years he would mix in one great performance with four or five terrible ones. When he was eventually dropped in early 2013, it was widely believed he would never return – Johnson’s confidence was at an all-time low and the Aussies had a number of good young bowlers coming through to take his place.
Instead, Johnson worked harder than ever, reinvented his action and returned a very different bowler to the inconsistent enigma we had witnessed before. Thanks to injuries to a number of those who had come into the Australian team to replace him, Johnson earned another chance in the first Ashes Test against England in Brisbane last November and it was here that the new Mitchell Johnson was unleashed.
Bowling faster than ever and now deadly accurate, he began hurling down a series of sharp, scarily quick deliveries that would bounce up around the batsmen’s head and have them jumping in fear of their lives (or at the very least copping a painful blow to the head).
England had arrived in Australia as firm favorites to win the Ashes for the fourth time in a row, but few had ever faced bowling of this ferocity and one by one Johnson claimed their wickets to edge Australia closer to an unlikely victory. In fact, the longer the series went on, the more fragile the English batsmen became and by the end of the series they returned home with their tails between their legs, having been thrashed 5-0.
Last week Australia arrived in South Africa for what was always going to be a much tougher test against the Proteas, who boast their own scarily fast bowler in Dale Steyn. Yet even Steyn paled into the background as Johnson unleashed a similar fury on the South African batsmen. Right from the outset, Johnson bowled with such vigor that two of the home side’s best batsmen – captain Graeme Smith and the usually unflappable Faf du Plessis – could only fend the ball from their bat straight to a fielder as they tried to protect their heads from the rock hard red ball.
In the first innings, Johnson took seven of the 10 wickets available and added five more in the second innings as the fearful South Africans struggled to find any answers. And just as they defied the critics in the Ashes, Australia emerged with a crushing 281 run win thanks more than anything else to the “Johnson effect”.
Whether you are a lifelong cricket fan or have never watched a game in your life, we recommend taking a look at Johnson when he bowls to South Africa in the second Test starting in Port Elizabeth on Thursday. He is a sight to behold and, truth be told, it could be sometime before we see batsmen so universally terrified of a bowler again.
