Mitchell Johnson was more terrifying in 1st Test against by By Garfield Robinson

By Garfield Robinson



Now that Mitchell Johnson has shown that he can manhandle the South Africans as well, England can feel better about their Australian misadventure. Now that South Africa’s highly vaunted batting has been revealed to be just as vulnerable to Australia’s high-velocity assault, then all the uproar currently surrounding England cricket should probably be seen as an overreaction to a result they were powerless to prevent.



Despite the fact that Johnson was unstoppable, and the outstanding difference between the two teams, South Africa were still preferred by many to win the current series. Quite a few number of pundits favoured the game’s top ranked test team on the basis that their batsmen would be better able to repel Johnson’s bombs, while the pace attack widely seen as cricket’s best, would block the escape routes that Australia often used to free themselves after suffering early setbacks during almost every game of the Ashes series.



In four of five tests against England, Australia lost five first innings wickets for fewer than 150 runs, but Brad Haddin and the lower order managed to formulate a getaway on almost every occasion. Surely, the South Africans were not going to allow that to happen with any regularity, and a batting unit with three players in the top-ten rankings would certainly not be bullied like an England batting line-up that was in disarray from the first test in Brisbane.



South Africa was a better team and was bound to put up a sterner fight. The Aussies were only able to overwhelm England because they caught them in a vulnerable state. Despite an outward veneer projecting strength, there were huge cracks under the surface that the resurgent Australians were able to exploit in a way that the South Africans wouldn’t tolerate.



This seemed a reasonable analysis leading up to the first test at Centurion. But it was shown to be totally erroneous after Johnson’s very first spell of the match. The South African’s were reduced to 28/3 after eight overs, all three wickets falling to the left-hander’s thunderbolts.
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