Australian cricket fans love to reminisce about Mitchell Johnson’s golden Ashes summer of destruction in 2013-14.
And rightly so – it was one of the most inspiring performances in the near 150-year history of cricket’s oldest contest.
Cricket Australia’s YouTube package entitled “Every Mitchell Johnson wicket from the 2013-14 Ashes” has a whopping 2.6 million views.
But what has been lost to the sands of history is the pervading sense of dread that enveloped the Australian cricket landscape leading into that series.
After being whipped 3-1 on home soil three years earlier and copping a 3-0 loss on the tour of England just a few months earlier, there was a sense of foreboding leading into that summer that the Aussies could be headed for a thrashing of unprecedented proportions.
Johnson had not been required for the trip to England and the Barmy Army had a songbook of sledges at the ready for his recall to the Australian team at the Gabba for the series opener.
With figures of 4-61 and 5-42, 64 and 39 not out with the bat, Johnson had the touring fans “looking to the left, looking to the right” as their batters were made to look like “shite” by the left-armer’s raw pace.
Johnson’s confidence and form snowballed on the back of his blistering 7-40 haul next up in Perth, his second player of the match award prompting back-to-back thumping wins.
Even though he “only” took six wickets in Adelaide, the Ashes were wrapped up in emphatic fashion and by the time Johnson revved up for the MCG Test, his 8-88 for the match put fear into the eyes of batters up and down the order.
After six more scalps in Sydney when the Aussies completed their remarkable clean sweep, Johnson was the undisputed player of the series with 38 wickets at 13.97, striking at a fraction of once every five overs.
It was carnage of the highest class.
As much as batters don’t like it, the sight of a genuine fast bowler at full flight gets spectators on the edge of their seats more than any other aspect of cricket.
The batters are usually the schoolyard bullies who dominate bowlers, who have to toil hard for every wicket in their mostly thankless task.
But when the epitome of a “nasty fastie” like Johnson is in top rhythm, even the best in the world like Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen in that series 12 years ago can be made to look like amateurs.
Jofra Archer has the ability to do something similar for England in the upcoming Ashes series.
He possesses the air speed and the bounce that can unsettle, unnerve and unseat Australian batters at the crease.
His duels with Steve Smith in the 2019 Ashes were some of the most thrilling theatre seen on a cricket field for years.
Smith loves to subtly point out that even though Archer made him look uncomfortable and struck him in the neck in the scary incident at Lord’s which ultimately ruled him out of the next Test, that he did not get him out across the five innings in which they went head to head.
But he did manage to snare 22 wickets in four Tests at 20.27 with two five-wicket hauls and a superb strike rate of 42.5.
England bowler Jofra Archer. (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)
In Archer’s favour for the return bout after four years of persistent injuries hampering his career is that the Australian wickets will offer much more bounce and venom than his adopted English soil.
The 30-year-old from Barbados does not tend to get carried away with overuse of the short ball, preferring to mete it out occasionally as a shock weapon to make batters wary about committing to front-foot shots.
Unfortunately for England, the big question mark over Archer will be his durability.
Much like Johnson 12 years ago and his consistency, the only way to put that reputation in the past is to bury it.
England can’t afford to be cautious or even strategic with Archer in terms of rotating him through the series.
He has to play in Perth and unless he gets injured yet again, he should be handed the pink ball for the Gabba day-nighter.
The Poms already look like they will have to be cautious with his fellow pace ace, Mark Wood, after he had a hamstring scare in their warm-up match against the England Lions at Lilac Hill on Friday.
England have not won a Test in Australia dating back to that 2013-14 series when Johnson turned one of their darkest hours into the dawn of just the third 5-0 result in history.
Similar to the Aussies back then, their team is capable but fragile with a few players who are out and out match-winners at their peak.
England’s hopes of turning an expected series defeat into a monumental upset rest on the shoulders, or more to the point, the lightning quick right arm of Archer.
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