The aftershocks of Cyclone Mitchell will rumble for years after his devastating trail of destruction

AUSSIE star Mitchell Johnson has become the Halley’s Comet of cricket - and you may not see his like again.

MITCHELL Johnson has become the Halley’s Comet of cricket — you just have to make sure you see him because you may not see his like again.

News_Image_File: Johnson in full flight and looking mean.

My plea today is for fathers of young cricketers to let their boys stay up that bit later during that South African Test series to watch a standard of intimidation that the game has seen perhaps five times in its history.

I’m not talking about crazy one-off spells like Devon Malcolm’s spasmodic bomb blitzes for England or relentless group assaults like the hungry West Indies wolves of the 1980s.

I’m talking relentless, sustained, vicious machine gun fire from a solitary assassin who, in the space of six Tests, has ransacked cricket’s world order.

Johnson has changed his own team’s fortunes to the point where an Australian side who had won none of its previous nine Tests has now won six in a row.

The measure of a great fast bowler is the path of destruction they leave behind and the aftershocks of Cyclone Mitchell will rumble for years.

Over the past few weeks I have been trawling through old footage of the most ferocious moments in cricket trying to get a feel for where the Johnson rampage, which has continued with a 12-wicket match haul against South Africa in Centurion, rates.

Frank Tyson’s decimation of Australia in the mid-1950s was something to behold but for sheer terror this rates only behind Harold Larwood’s Bodyline deeds and beside Jeff Thomson’s harassment of England in 1974-75.

News_Rich_Media: Workhorse fast bowler Peter Siddle says Australia's bowlers can be proud of their efforts in the First Test against South Africa, but reserved special praise for Mitchell Johnson after the left-armer took 12 wickets in Centurion.

I was a 13-year-old boy at the Gabba in 1974 when Thomson ripped through England, taking 9-105 for the match.

The crowd vibe was quite strange.

Amid the rampant joy there was also car-accident style shock as in “something very nasty is happening here”.

For all the joy of seeing England torn apart limb by limb it was so brutal that was also mildly confronting — much like the vibe that has been flowing through our television sets from South Africa.

Ryan McLaren’s dismissal on Saturday embodied this theme. He was hit on the head, started bleeding, recovered, was bounced and humiliated again, eventually losing his wicket and his dignity. He may never be seen again.

Watching it, you were not sure whether to stand and cheer — or wince. Great fast bowlers destroy captains (Alastair Cook and Graeme Smith). They get innocent coaches (Andy Flower) sacked.

News_Image_File: Ryan McLaren is hit by a delivery from Johnson as he tries to duck underneath it.

They end careers (Graeme Swann and perhaps Jonathan Trott).

They make teammates’ (David Warner) sledges, which seemed like vapourous hot air when the side was losing, suddenly drip with acid.

They turn teams against each other (Kevin Pietersen). Had there been no Mitchell Johnson, Pietersen would still be playing for England.

Cricket had almost forgot what it felt like to have a wild man on the loose. The true merit of Johnson’s work is that it comes against a backdrop of an era where bowlers have become slaves.

Heavy bats, flat decks, short boundaries and Twenty20 cricket have conspired to make bowlers the Clydesdales of cricket — until Johnson burst the chains of oppression.

Cricket owes Johnson a debt because he has single-handedly revitalised the art of the fast bowling hatchet man. The word is Australia have given him just two instructions — aim for the helmet or the waist.

The riddle for cricket fans is to work out how Johnson could redefine himself from an infuriatingly hot and cold fast bowling enigma into a Force 10 firebrand.

News_Rich_Media: Mitchell Johnson finishes with career-best match figures as Australia humiliates South Africa in the first Test at Centurion.

Talking to Johnson late in the summer it was clear there was no standout factor but a combination of four planets aligning.

They were — roughly in order of importance ...

* Having an enforced seven-month break which transformed him from a crestfallen soul craving to be dropped to one desperate to play again.

* Becoming a father and realising there are more important things than cricket.

* Lengthening his run-up, getting fitter, and working on pulling his front arm down quickly so it enhanced the whip of his delivery.

* Being used as a pure strike weapon in short menacing bursts.

It is 14 years since Johnson’s mentor, Dennis Lillee, spoke to The Courier-Mail at a deserted nets session and declared a 19-year-old Johnson a “once in a lifetime bowler,” a claim which caused heads to shake at the time but is now looking more accurate by the day.