What is more rip-roaring? The big sixes and cracking
boundaries whacked by the willow-wielders or ferocity of the speed merchants?
To this generation which is more addicted to T20 cricket, it’s
surely the resplendent willow-wielders of modern generation who take the
bowlers to the cleaners in no time, and why not? It’s a batsmen’s world after
all.
The tracks are more suitable for the batsmen and rules are
friendlier. In the domination of the bat, the bowlers find themselves at the
receiving end. Modern day cricket is more about the batsman vs batsman battle rather
than a batsman vs bowler clash.
I started to get addicted to cricket in late 80s and in 90s,
cricket became my heart and soul. In those days, world cricket was titillating.
There existed great battles between the bat and ball and above all, there
existed forces of nature – truculent speed stars who used to inject terror in the
heart and mind of the batsmen.
Wasim, Waqar Younis, Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh and
Allan Donald were the wild beauties who ruled the rooster during the 90s. They
were the perfect torch bearers of pace bowling after Imran Khan, Dennis Lillee,
Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding and others before them.
But sadly, in the last decade, there had not been these wild
beauties in plenty. The bat was found more dominant and it seemed that fast
bowling will soon go the way of dinosaurs. In this commercial world, ball
bouncing past the batsman’s head doesn’t attract sponsors any more. Ball
beating the bat isn’t termed as financially lucrative. The result, is young
men, who wish to become pace bowlers, sacrifice pace and concentrate more on
mechanical bowling – line, length and corridor of uncertainty. That’s much less
adventurous and dull indeed.
At the fag end of last decade, we witnessed the emergence of
Dale Steyn as a force to be reckoned. But cricket fans like me wished for more
predators like Steyn. I wished for the raw animal excitement. My heart craved
for the terrible beauty. I wanted someone to trigger a Renaissance.
That ‘someone’ certainly has arrived to be reincarnated as
the terrible beauty, to rekindle the days of Lillee and Thomson. At Brisbane ,
in the first Ashes Test, Mitchell Johson’s career took a new turn as he
unleashed ferocious fast bowling which was beyond the imagination of English
batsmen.
His bouncers were bowled with astonishing control that sent
shivers down the English batsmen’s spines. He hit the helmet, he hit the arm
and he hit the wicket columns regularly. The English summer in Australia
was turned to nightmare due to Mitchell Johnson. Whenever Johnson ran into
bowl, he found the crowd roaring his name – a sight which was so common during
the days of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson. Johnson finished the Ashes series
successfully with 37 wickets.
After the Ashes, Johnson flew to South
Africa and against the best Test team in the
world, there was plenty to prove and Johnson hit the jackpot immediately.
In the first Test at Centurion ,
Mitchell Johnson was found even more wolfish than the Ashes. His each delivery
were ripsnorting, each delivery gobbled the Proteas batsmen in the most brutal
manner to leave them shell-shocked! His twelve-wicket haul has already dented
the South Africans’ psyche and I am not sure whether they will be able to
recover from the effect of such a high-profile fast bowling.
With that moustache, Mitchell Johnson gives the impression
of a wild beast hunter who loves to hunt mercilessly and boy, he does hunt
batsmen in a terrible manner. For him, fast bowling is not about pinpoint
accuracy, maintaining a tight line-and-length outside the off-stump, but it’s
all about killing monotony by essaying thrills and chills.
He is not about the splendour and grace, but raw animal
excitement. He is about virility and violence and the wild intoxication that
living on the edge can provide. No matter on which track Johnson will bowl, his
viciousness will be the same.
Mitchell Johnson is modern cricket’s tornado who brings an
endemic in the opposition’s batting line-up. As a fast bowler, Johnson is an
ideal blend of raw-power, swagger, rhythm and anticipation. He is the crowd’s
most wanted bunny – buzz goes around the stadium as soon as he runs into bowl –
the crowd knows that an adventure is about to unleash that could be productive
or calamitous, but can’t be dull for that is not in his repertoire.
Mitchell Johnson is a terrible beauty. He is the Renaissance
for whom I was waiting. He is the revolution which the world cricket needed
badly. He will be the catalyst to bring an end to this monotonous batsmen vs
batsmen battle and abolish the trend of encouraging young guns to reduce the
pace and concentrate more on robotic bowling.
His bustling pace and bone-chilling fast-bowling will change
the taste of TV broadcasters which invest more interests on the bowlers’ miseries.
Mitchell Johnson will essay a brave new world of vicious pace-bowling – a
potent weapon which is rare these days.
Note: This article has been published in Sportskeeda on 18/02/2014 Mitchell Johnson – A terrible beauty who has brought back the fear of pace
Thank You
Thank You
Faisal Caesar
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