Fast, furious and feared

The year was 2007 and sweat from Mitchell Johnson’s frame glistened under the late afternoon sun. Following his protégé send down a series of speedy deliveries at the MRF Pace Foundation was pace bowling legend Denis Lillee.

The eagle-eyed Lillee was picking every detail in Johnson’s bowling. After all, when he discovered Johnson as a 17-year-old, Lillee had called him ‘once-in-a-generation’ fast bowler.

It was high praise from someone careful with his words. This also meant Johnson carried with him the burden of expectations.

When his career — marked by courage, resilience and explosive bursts — concluded at Perth on Tuesday, Johnson had ticked most of the boxes to finish as one of the pace bowling greats in Test history.

Fittingly, the 34-year-old Johnson ended fourth with 313 Test scalps, behind the third-placed Lillee in the list of Australia’s most successful wicket-takers in the longer format.

Someone who fought back from a stress fracture of the lower back and slumps in form, Johnson grew in stature to become the spearhead. ‘Mitch’ was a dreaded head-hunter.

Once the Aussie sorted out the technical issues of transfer of weight from back to front leg and held his front shoulder firm ahead of release, he was a different beast as a fast bowler. Earlier, the left-armer had trouble holding his right shoulder and this adversely impacted his release.

Although not as versatile as Wasim Akram — the Pakistani was the sultan of swing — Johnson built his own repertoire. He could not, for instance, swing the ball away like Akram did. Instead, Johnson angled the delivery away from the right-handers at telling pace from over-the-wicket.

Gradually, he learnt to straighten the delivery at the right-hander; the batsman would play for the angle away and find himself defeated. And Johnson took out plenty of left-handers from over-the-wicket with an off-stump line, bounce and slight seam movement away.

Johnson had an interesting action. It was sling-arm and a tad round-armish. As his career progressed, he utilised the angles capably.

And he softened or prised out batsmen with vicious short-pitched deliveries. Johnson could get the ball to climb from just short of a good length. The threat of physical danger to the batsmen was imminent. The pace at which Johnson invariably operated — between 145 and 150 kmph — often did not give the batsmen enough time to react.

If the batsman was not decisive in his methods against these short-pitched fliers, Johnson would inflict physical and psychological scars. From round-the-wicket he could unleash bouncers that followed batsmen and challenged their technique.

The English batsmen discovered this the hard way when Johnson blew away 37 batsmen at 13.97 in five Tests down under in 2013-14.

His seven for 40 marked by ferocity on a flat Adelaide surface — air speed was Johnson’s ally — has its place among the most destructive spells of modern times.

Last season this correspondent witnessed Johnson alter the course of a tight Test with a lethal spell of 4-1-14-3 in the first hour of the fourth day at the ’Gabba. He was a game-changer.

Now the time has come to pass the baton to another exceptional fast bowler — Mitchell Starc.