December 07, 2013 4:50PM
MITCHELL Johnson, you absolute bloody superstar. Mitchell Johnson, you magnificent moustachioed mountain of menacing manhood. Mitchell Johnson, you cricketing god, you.
Mitchell Johnson, in demolishing England yet again, this time with an astonishing 7 for 40, you are rapidly becoming the archetypal hero of every sports movie ever made.
Here’s how sports movies go. Excellent sportsman is excellent. Excellent sportsman then has major setback and becomes previously excellent sportsman. Previously excellent sportsman has doubts. He has demons. His career appears to be over.
Then, after much soul-searching and pain, previously excellent sportsman recovers and becomes excellent once more. In fact he becomes more than excellent. He becomes unstoppably, awesomely, irresistibly rampant. That, right there, is the Mitchell Johnson story.
Mitchell Johnson burst onto the scene in 2007. By 2009, he was named Cricketer of the Year by world cricket’s governing body, the ICC. The sporting gods then thought they’d have their customary giggle at all that, and robbed Johnson of his powers the very same year.
Johnson was woeful in the 2009 Ashes. Though he took a respectable 20 wickets for the series, his bowling will be remembered more for the balls that landed off the pitch than the ones that landed on it. At times, it seemed as though he was playing on the spare pitches beside the main one.
In 2011, he had another shocker against South Africa in South Africa in a tour mercifully cut short by injury.
He returned to the Australian team after a year in the cricketing wilderness, only to be sent home from India this April for failing to hand in his homework to Mickey Arthur. And then he wasn’t picked for the midyear Ashes tour to England.
The Arthur/homework saga ignited a debate over the rights of the individual versus those of the team which resonated in workplaces as it did among the sporting community.
What we have learned this summer, no matter how things pan out from here, is that a sportsman’s introspection doesn’t count for squat unless it’s the sort of introspection that freshens a mind and rejuvenates a tired bowling action.
At 32, Johnson has recovered the venom that had many calling him the next Dennis Lillee from an early age.
That was never going to happen by completing all the homework exercises in the world. It had to come from within. And it has.
Johnson has been unplayable in the three Ashes innings in which he’s bowled this summer. Already he has taken 16 of the 30 English wickets to fall. Not for 16 years has a team made as few runs in the first innings of an Adelaide Test as England did today.
But forget the stats. It’s the way Mitchell Johnson gets his wickets that has set Australia alight. Johnson takes spectacular wickets, wickets that leave you gulping in awe. Stumps crash when he bowls. Even good batsmen look silly.
Commentators keep reaching to terms like “Jaffa” and “peach” and assorted other references to orange-coloured fruit. Whatever you call those unplayable balls that late swing out of his enormous left arm, they’re just so damned satisfying to watch. And that’s from the sidelines. You can only imagine what the man himself is feeling.
Johnson looks a much happier character these days. He said as much today when Channel Nine’s Mark Nicholas asked if these were the happiest days of his life.
“Yeah it definitely puts a smile on my face,” he said.
“Plenty of people were telling me I was never going to play again so it feels very emotional.”
It’s emotional for us too, Mitch, you little bloody beauty.
————————————————————————————
Mitchell Johnson was born on November 2nd, 1981 according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Johnson_(cricketer)
November 2nd, 1981
11 + 2 +1+9+8+1 = 32 = his life lesson = One of the best. One of the greatest.
—————————————————————————————–
—————————————————————————————–
—————————————————————————————–
—————————————————————————————–
—————————————————————————————–
—————————————————————————————–
—————————————————————————————–
—————————————————————————————–
—————————————————————————————–
predictions for the year 2013 are at:
http://predictionsyear2013.com/
—————————————————————–
—————————————————————–
——————————————————————
discover some of your own numerology for FREE at:
—————————————————————————————–
—————————————————————————————–
—————————————————————————————–
learn numerology from numerologist to the world, Ed Peterson:
https://www.createspace.com/4317439
sports astrology and numerology 