Mitchell Johnson's Ashes pace barrage revives the fear factor in cricket

AN injection of pace and danger, reviving memories of cricket's most fearsome fast bowlers, is just what the game needed.

GHOSTS of cricket's past were in Brisbane last week, and my, they were good to see. A figure with a remarkable resemblance to Tony Greig appeared through his son, Mark, who came to promote a book he has written in memory of his father. The welcome sight was that of some brutal fast bowling, something that cricket historians will always associate with Greig and that particular ground.

Those who witnessed the Ashes in 1974-75, when Jeffrey Robert Thomson pounded England's batsmen with some of the quickest bowling in the history of the game, would not forget it. Nor would they forget Greig who, helmetless and fearless, cut and carved his way to a brilliant hundred in Brisbane, winding the opposition up into a frenzy with every boundary he signalled.

It was a rare highlight on that tour for England, who finished bruised and battered, in much the same way as their modern counterparts did last week. Except that it went on for most of the summer, until the final Test in Melbourne when Thomson was injured and England made more than 500. Some of England's batsmen were never quite the same thereafter.

Thomson didn't terrorise only England either, as West Indies discovered the next year in a bruising encounter that encouraged Clive Lloyd to turn to four battering rams of his own.

Regardless of the acrimonious way the Test finished on Sunday, it was a very good match of, and for, cricket.

The pitch offered enough pace and bounce to encourage the entire range of skills and in Mitchell Johnson there was a reminder of just how unhinging and psychologically scarring fast bowling can be, and how wonderful a sight it is to see a truly quick bowler in full flow.

Cricket is a far better game when there is a physical threat, and when batsmen have to search inside themselves and summon up the courage.

The game needed to see such a sight, with batsmen hopping around and the wicketkeeper, 30 yards back and more, taking thunderbolts as tailenders cowered, surrounded by fieldsmen who were close enough to smell fear.

Although there has been the odd great fast bowler in recent years - Dale Steyn has been the torch-bearer, but even he has swapped a yard of pace for greater control of late - there have been too few of them.

A combination of slow pitches and excessive cricket has produced a glut of fast-medium bowlers hovering around the 125km/h to 135km/h mark.

Any number of other factors have mitigated against the fast men. The advent of coaches has produced a game more controlled by reason than gut, with carefully laid-out strategies dictating that captains choose bowlers with impeccable control who can implement their plans.

England are the best example in recent years, success in the field based on accuracy and, as they like to say, "bowling dry". It is the reason why Steven Finn, despite an excellent start to his Test career, has spent more time on the bench, and the reason why Chris Tremlett was preferred to him last week.

It has worked, and in Graeme Swann and James Anderson, England have had two top-class bowlers, as skilled as any in world cricket. But a great part of cricket's folklore, the stories and memories that sustain it, concern the fast men.

Spectators deserve to see the full range of skills at a Test match and thrill to the sight of a great fast bowler steaming in. Harold Larwood and bodyline; Lillee and Thomson; the West Indies four, and more; Allan Donald, Shoaib Akhtar and Brett Lee breaking the speed gun and not worrying for a moment about "hitting the top of off", or "bowling in the channel" or "putting it in the right areas".

Raw and visceral cricket it may be, but no one who was at the Gabba last week could say it was dull. It may also have a lasting impact. Before the game, England began with a settled team, a strong batting line-up and a favourite's chance.

Now, thanks above all to Johnson, they are in some disarray and a batsman down. And Jonathan Trott's team-mates? Well, they are thinking about the next few weeks with a little more trepidation than they did before.

In my first year as a professional at Lancashire, I turned up to winter nets to be greeted by a senior player who was chalking up the next summer's fixtures on a blackboard. On it, he had written down each county fixture; next to the county's name he had written the name of the overseas fast bowler (these were the days when every county had one), and next to that, he had written the name of the venue where we were to play. Next to "Hampshire: Malcolm Marshall: Portsmouth" (a notoriously quick pitch then) he had put a cross, as he had next to "Middlesex: Wayne Daniel: Uxbridge". He didn't play in either, needless to say.

Fast bowling affects the opposition in ways that are not necessarily immediately understood. Bowlers look at batsmen in a different light and may not be so keen to stick around themselves (Anderson's suicidal running at the end of the Brisbane Test being a case in point); batsmen begin to wonder why the opposition's cannons are firing with greater potency than their own pea-shooters.

And for the team who do have the cannons, the game suddenly becomes a lot more fun. Yorkshire's home-grown policy in the late 1980s and 1990s meant that they were always playing against overseas fast bowlers but had nothing to fire back with.

In Roses matches we loved pitting Wasim Akram or Patrick Patterson against their dobbers. How emboldened Australia's fielders became as Johnson tore into England's tail.

England went to the Gabba full of confidence and with the strut of a team who expected to win. They are highly competent and supremely well prepared, in a crossing the i's and dotting the t's kind of way.

You cannot prepare, though, for 150km/h thunderbolts sent down by an inconsistent left-armer with an unorthodox action.

This was a throwback to a more macho cricketing world, and it completely discombobulated England. The Gabba might not have been good for Alastair Cook's team, but it was certainly good for cricket.

The Times