Mitchell Johnson's Profile by CricketArchive

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Player:

MG Johnson

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DateLine: 19th February 2007

 

The heady praise even before his arrival on the international scene should have forewarned batsmen the world over. Dennis Lillee spotted him as a 17-year-old at an Australian pace bowler’s camp and hailed him as a ``once in a generation bowler’’. Lillee knows a thing or two about pace bowling and pace bowling prospects and when he put it that way it was clear that Mitchell Johnson was no ordinary bowler and that much more would be heard of him in the future. Soon after he made his first class debut he was being called the most exciting Aussie fast bowling prospect since Brett Lee. Little wonder then that he was rushed through the ranks and catapulted into international cricket. The start has been most impressive to say the least. Here is a bowler who has everything – height, pace, an aggressive approach, the ability to achieve steep bounce off the surface, a vicious yorker and a deceptively quick bouncer. Most important of all he is left handed. After a modest start to his ODI career he really made the cricketing world sit up and watch in astonishment as he ripped through a formidable Indian batting line up in the DLF Cup tri series in Kuala Lumpur in September. In next to no time he had the wickets of Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh and Irfan Pathan as India slid sharply to 35 for five. Rain then halted play before Johnson could add to his figures of four for 11 but that spell was enough to warn batsmen the world over that a lethal striking force had burst upon the scene