View from South Africa: Press in awe of mighty Mitch, and a beer sculling chick
IF Mitchell Johnson was looking for an ego boost, it came courtesy of Faf du Plessis’s weekly column in South Africa.
“I GOT two of the most deadly balls I’ve ever received in Test cricket.”
If Mitchell Johnson was looking for an ego boost ahead of the Port Elizabeth Test, it came courtesy of Faf du Plessis’ column on South Africa’s SuperSport website.
Du Plessis was dismissed for 3 and 18 by Johnson and Peter Siddle respectively in Centurion, and wrote with wide-eyed wonder at Johnson’s “incredible” improvements.
“In my opinion, I got two of the most deadly balls I’ve ever received in Test cricket,” du Plessis wrote. “The first-innings delivery from Johnson reared up at my throat and nearly took my head off, while the second-innings ball from Siddle hit a crack and barely bounced, before hitting me plumb in front.
“What I was impressed by was his consistency, which wasn’t there before. I found that he didn’t swing the ball much, but instead made excellent use of the SuperSport Park pitch, which was offering more bounce than it usually does. He was banging it in hard and letting it rip at around 150 kilometres an hour, and together with his consistency and great lengths, that made him quite a handful.
“You may wonder what it’s like to walk out when your side is two down very early on, with a guy at the other end hurling 150kph thunderbolts at you. Obviously, the adrenalin is going and I don’t think there’s any batter who enjoys that early on in his innings, particularly if the ball is aimed at your head. But for me it’s a challenge, with both guys trying to get the upper hand. My new challenge is coming to the wicket very early on, facing the new ball, having previously come in at six and seven. I must adapt, and I certainly felt like I had in the second innings.”
MPUMELELO Mbangwa was similarly impressed with the skill and violence of Johnson’s bowling at the first Test.
Describing his performance as a “bolt from the blue” — he clearly didn’t watch the Ashes series — Mbangwa challenged South Africa’s pace trio of Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Vernon Philander to meet the standard of Johnson.
“If (Johnson) was not knocking stumps over or nicking off SA’s batsmen, he was inflicting pain by sending thunderbolts thudding into the body of whoever was at the other end,” Mbangwa wrote on the SuperSport website.
“As the teams prepare for the second test in Port Elizabeth, the questions are going to be posed only to one team.
“The first, and obvious one, is how will they combat those Mitchell Johnson spears? It is of the utmost importance that the other Proteas batsmen raise their game.
“There is also the question whether South Africa’s pace attack can make things as uncomfortable for the Australian batsmen as Johnson have made things for the Proteas?
“Can they get up to Johnson’s standards? If they can, then we are in for another magnificent display of fast bowling that will yield lots of action in Port Elizabeth.”
IT WASN’T just South African players and commentators fretting over Johnson. He’s tormenting the minds of the Rainbow Nation’s cricket scribes, too.
“South Africans will have been shocked by the way their team, officially the No 1 side in the world, were shown to be, by some distance, not even the best XI in Centurion,” wrote Telford Vice in Business Day.
“Not only did a single bowler blow them away at the crease, their own bowlers struggled to penetrate — it is a sobering fact that Johnson took only two fewer wickets than South Africa’s entire six-man attack.
“Even more alarmingly, their fielding crashed to a standard seldom served up by a professional team in South Africa. The Australians, by contrast, did not drop a single catch.”
ANTOINETTE Muller, writing in the Daily Maverick, noted that Graeme Smith’s men have been notorious slow starters in recent seasons yet still managed to retain their Test No. 1 ranking.
But those series didn’t feature Johnson. And, as Muller notes, the Proteas have offered little reason to believe they’ll provide a better account of themselves in Port Elizabeth.
“The Australians not only scaled the fortress of Centurion: they conquered it, burnt it to the ground and still had time to roast marshmallows over the simmering embers,” Muller wrote. “As far as defeats over the last five years go, there has not been a worse hammering.
Slow starts are nothing new for South Africa ... (but) in the last two years, they have never been up against the pantomime villain-like character like Johnson.
“Australia’s left-arm pace sensation is in the form of his life and as coach Russell Domingo said after the obliteration on day two, there is nothing that can prepare you for that kind of bowling at that kind of intensity, even if you’ve seen it before.”
STUART Hess, writing in the Johannesburg Star, was similarly pessimistic when assessing South Africa’s chances of responding to the challenge of Johnson.
The physical pounding of Centurion, he argued, was weighing on the hosts mentally ahead of Port Elizabeth.
“Johnson is very much in their heads and it has affected all areas of their game, as we witnessed in that desperately poor middle session on Friday,” Hess wrote.
There are four days to go before the start of the second Test in Port Elizabeth. Repairing the psychological damage must be the priority for the next few days.
“South Africa now know exactly where they stand with this Australian side and unfortunately, that’s a long, long way behind them.”
OK seriously, when does the next flight leave for South Africa? #SAvAUS pic.twitter.com/kQAqohGNxI
— FOX SPORTS Cricket (@FOXCricketLive) February 15, 2014BUT it was not all doom and gloom.
The local media was effusive in its praise of a certain band of South Africans at Centurion- the drinking public.
Beer towers — the Saffer equivalent of our own national treasure, the beer snake — were erected around the ground, bringing much needed cheer on a day that was otherwise notable for tumbling Proteas wickets.
“The world got to see the robustness of the South African female,” wrote Kevin McCallum in The Star. “Dared to down a beer from a funnel by some men on a stag do, she did so with aplomb and much style, giving them the finger as she did so.
“SuperSport showed this live on TV. Around the world, there was admiration and shock. The Australian Fox Sports Cricket Twitter feed posted a screen grab of the young lady’s feat and asked: ‘OK seriously, when does the next flight leave for South Africa?’”
THE crowd antics didn’t stop there. According to Neil Van Der Linde from South Africa’s News24 website, the Centurion Test witnessed the birth of a new sport.
It’s called the Guatrain drinking game. The Gautrain is the rail service that links the province of Gauteng. It runs close to Super Sport Park. The game goes like this: “Every time the train passes each person must raise their drink and salute the train by saying Gautrain.
“The last person to do so has to down their current drink. Fun in the sun except if you feel like the train ran over you the following day.”