Mitchell Johnson fired up for Ashes redemption
There’s only one sure-fire way for Mitchell Johnson to put last year’s erratic and, frankly, demoralising Ashes performance behind him when the 2010/11 series gets underway on home turf.
And that’s to deliver fire and brimstone bowling of the kind that saw the Australia paceman break bones in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 skipper Graeme Smith’s hand not once, but twice in little more than two months in Test series both at home and away at the start of 2009.
That was the bowler Australia thought they’d brought with them as they returned to Britain in a bid to make sure that 2005 loss to the old enemy in Blighty was a one-off.
In the end, that wasn’t how things panned out and while there were 11 crestfallen players out on The Oval as England claimed victory on the final day, Johnson had been cutting a rather forlorn figure for much of the series.
While the left-arm speedster did finish the series with 20 wickets to his name, the lasting memory of Johnson’s series was his apparent inability to deal with the pressure of being http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746’s strike bowler, and to put aside the media speculation about issues in his private life when he stepped onto the field, issues that manifested themselves in what was his all too often wayward bowling.
It was form that had pundits and fans alike calling for the player who would later be named as the ICC’s 2009 Cricketer of the Year to be axed from the Ashes side, and though the selectors stuck resolutely by their man, Johnson continued to struggle.
Ricky Ponting (who suffered the ignominy of losing two Ashes series in England as captain when the final Australian wicket fell last year) aside, no-one in the baggy green will be as keen to make amends for that loss as the soon to be 29-year-old.
Speaking at the official launch for Perth's international summer of cricket, Johnson admitted to building last year’s Ashes series up in his mind but said that he’s now been through that experience, adjusted to being a leader of the Australia attack and is now looking forward to this series.
“Nothing compares to the excitement of representing your country in a battle for the Ashes against our arch-rivals England, and I can't wait to experience this summer's action on our home turf,” Johnson said.
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