Australia has finally worked out a role for Johnson

During the Adelaide Test match, Ian Healy, former Australian keeper turned Channel 9 commentator said “Dennis Lillee might have revamped Johnson’s action but obliviously Johnson has more confidence but that doesn’t come overnight. There has to be more than that “.

Johnson journey towards regaining the confidence started during a tournament, all of us like to criticise believing it is simply a cash cow that diminishes the development of young cricketers.  The IPL or IP-HELL as some calls it.  

Johnson was of one the naughty boys who didn’t do their homework in India and he also looked pedestrian in the 4^th and final Test against India in March.  Had Johnson been plucked away at that moment and thrown into an Ashes arena we could well have seen the headlines “Ditch Mitch”. Luckly there was time. A week after one of Australia’s worst tours in quarter of a century, Johnson landed up in Mumbai playing for Mumbai Indians, a team lead by one of Johnson most ardent backers, Ricky Ponting.

The left arm pacer played in 17/19 matches and ended up with 24 wickets, 3^rd highest in the IPL. It was only T20 cricket but right through the tournament Johnson was gaining confidence. The pace was increasing and so was the belief.  Importantly, it was the role he was given and the T20 format that allowed him to bowl into those short sharp bursts.  It allowed Johnson to touch speeds in excess of 150 for the first time since that exceptional tour of South Africa in 2009.

One of the coaching staff from the Mumbai Indians coach said after the IPL triumph “As a coaching staff we didn’t care if he swung it or not, it was all about bowling nice and quick, Malinga has had huge success because of that theory and we were confident Johnson could replicate it”

Perhaps this is where the whole nation had gone wrong with Johnson; we always looked at him as an Alan Davidson rather than a Jeff Thomson.  Captains and Coaches waited patiently for Johnson to imitate the Wasim Akram’s inswingers trapping batsmen in front of the stumps. Trying to make Johnson into a bowler he was perhaps was never destined to be was the biggest mistake that was made with him.

A day after been left out of Ashes squad in England, Johnson tore through Chennai Super Kings top order in burst reminiscence to Brisbane and Adelaide. So impressive was Johnson, Brett Lee went on to say “Johnson was in the form of his life and was extremely unlucky not to be in the Ashes squad”. But Johnson bid his time, just like he did quite often in between his short spells in the IPL.

The confidence Johnson gained during his IPL stint would then transform into the Champions Trophy and the ODI series in England.  He was used sparingly and his role was to bowl with hostility rather than gentility.

The new defined role was transformed from the IPL into the national colours. The English batsmen were first greeted with Johnson’s brutality in ODI series after the Ashes. Peitersen and Trott were made to hop and the maximum amount of over’s Johnson bowled in a spell were limited to four.

Even on the benign wickets of the sub-continent, Johnson single handled won Australia a match with bowling in Chandigarh with figures of 4/43. Each one of his dismissals was to the short ball in one brief futile spell of three over’s.

Since the start of this calendar year, Johnson has played in 4 Tests, 22 ODI and 22 T20’s it adds up to 64 days of international cricket. It is the most by any Australia bowler this year.  Johnson had made mockery of the rotation policy by playing in all format’s starting with the less fancied T20. It is the shortest format of the game that has transformed him into a bowler that he perhaps was also intended to be for Australia.  It’s hard to accept, but the IPL has played a part.