Mitchell Johnson bowling over the wicket to right handed batsmen

[Manee]

Mitch has played a lot of tests this year, but hes also bowled a lot at home and a few in South Africa. I would really like to see how he goes outside because thus far hes been a miserable failure in all bar the series to SA, which really was a freak exception given that for the only time in his career he got the ball to swing.

I would not call his swing in South Africa, a freak exception. South Africa tends to be quite helpful for swing bowling. In the 2007 World T20, RP Singh got the ball to swing in to the right hander with a similarly heavily angled seam position to MiJo - hinting that conditions may have a part to play when assessing left arm bowlers getting it to swing in, with an angled seam.

 

[zaremba]

Johnson has an amazing ability to absolute tripe and yet still take wickets. That's a precious attribute. What impresses me most is his bouncer, which is extremely nasty.

 

[bryce]

I think it is partly the trajectory that Johnson delivers the ball at combined with his pace, and when he hits that length a little short of a half volley outside off stump he can draw a batsman into a shot when they would normally leave the ball. And it only really happens against right handers because the ball is travelling across the stumps which seems to add to the likelihood of a batsman being drawn into a shot, because of the above factors meaning the batsman often thinks to defend first but then realises the ball is travelling outside the stumps and they merely end up poking at the ball, often resulting in an edge

 

[Burgey]

Is he? Well he has not put on much variety nor pace in the last 12 months. And after Ashes 2009, I am not sure he has achieved much more control also. To be fair, I did not watch him in the recent series so I cannot really comment on that. He is still the blow hot blow cold kind of bowler for me; somebody like Zaheer Khan or James Anderson who can blow away batting lineups when in form but is completely listless when not in control.

Do you watch cricket? He's been very accurate for the most part this summer.

Johnson's a conundrum to me - people say he gets wickets with crap balls, and he does, among the ones he gets with jaffas. Point is though, he keeps getting batsmen out - whether it's the angle, the round-arm trajectory, the fact he's genuinely quick or some sort of combination of all of those things. For some reason he just keeps doing it, and he's been doing it for long enough now to say it's very likely not a coincidence.

 

[aussie]

You really do not need Vettori at 8 in that line up, if you were after somebody to bat 7 then yeah maybe Vettori

Vettori is definately capable of batting @ 7 these days well consistently. But in a hypotetical WORD XI with the best in world to chose from i'd have him @ 8.

but Swann's a better spinner IMHO and he's great with the bat anyway if picking the better bowler wasn't enough to justify it.

Swann not better than Vettori yet, but he is not far behind of course. Swann has had a bit of purple patch now yea, but Vettori is longevity behind him especially a EXCELLENT record againts AUS.

How can they both do it better One of them does it better than the other, that's the whole point of being the best in the world at something.

Not sure what you mean here uncle, come again...

 

[aussie]

I would not call his swing in South Africa, a freak exception. South Africa tends to be quite helpful for swing bowling. In the 2007 World T20, RP Singh got the ball to swing in to the right hander with a similarly heavily angled seam position to MiJo - hinting that conditions may have a part to play when assessing left arm bowlers getting it to swing in, with an angled seam.

Thats why it was freak occurance because the conditons in SA aided swing bowling in that series TBF. Johnson at best is when he bowling back of lenght, aiming at the batsman's ribcage with the odd ball pitched up.

But he can swing the ball (red or white) when the conditon is suite though.

 

[aussie]

I've said this before and I will say it again, Johnson gets a ridiculous number of wickets through poor batting rather than good bowling. He is a rather one dimensional bowler and whilst I understand that there are plenty of right hand batsmen out there who struggle with just the pure novelty factor (left hander bowling at 150mph and getting the ball to leave the batsmen), I cant quite see how I can rate him highly because of that.

My personal opinion is that
a) batsmen will get better as they play him more

I dont think any batsman/team will ever find facing Johnson to be comfortable TBH. Even with all the video analysis around. He is just not the type of bowler you can ever feel like you on top off since as a batsman you may get crap ball one delivery & a beauty the next. Plus with his ability to bowl in at almost 150 kph, it makes it even more complicated..

Plus as he showed in SA he clearly can swing the ball when condtions aid swing bowling. Theirfore you cant use the argument that he is a one-dimentional bowler. That argument has been invalid since the series vs SA 08/09 9 (in AUS).

I dont indeed see how he will be really effective on flat decks in the sub-continent give he cant reverse it. That i reckon will be a problem in his career as he progresses..

b) he will struggle to take wickets on slower wickets away from home, because he really wont be beating very many batsmen by bowling wide of the off stump (this is also why he struggled in England).

Actually Johnson struggled in ENG because he didn't adapt to duke ball fast enough (this is 100% factual, but based on the little cricket i have played with the duke ball & Kookaburra ball - i think watching him bowl in the Ashes intially it was a factor in him not bowling well) & he had personal family issues.

Fully agree with this. This was evident even in the Indian tour as well. In fact they had him figured out in the tour to Australia itself.

Its usless to use any of Johnson's test peformances early in his career between SRI 07 to NZ 08, in which he played IND twice as guide to anything given he was not 100% test quality during this period. He will very must still in the "learning phase".

 

[Son Of Coco]

This is true although its mostly the case for the first 2 tests rather than for the entire series. I dont think he is more accurate now, it is just that he has been getting players to nick the same deliveries that were being easily dispatched for 4 in England. His line and length, wide outside the off stump at 90mph is more likely to be dispatched for 4 in England than in Australia.

If batsmen opted for a more conservative approach against Johnson and left anything that he bowled that pitched on or outside off, he wouldnt get a batsman out.

I was one of the people saying he'd been terrible in England for at least the first two tests. Even though he improved slightly for the last three I think he was pretty inconsistent for the series.

Against the WI and Pak though, in the spells I've seen, he's been much improved when it comes to getting the ball in the right areas. I wish he'd bowled similarly in The Ashes, it might've helped a bit.

I think the main problem in England was that he didn't bowl enough wicket-taking balls in amongst the other stuff. You can get him having spells where he's pretty accurate, but we didn't really see that in England. He still picked up wickets, which is saying something, but I rarely thought he was going to be a real threat when he came on. Unlike when he played against SA.

There were obviously other issues too affecting his game.

 

[stephen]

If nothing else, he's a very exciting player to follow.

 

[Ikki]

Do you watch cricket? He's been very accurate for the most part this summer.

Johnson's a conundrum to me - people say he gets wickets with crap balls, and he does, among the ones he gets with jaffas. Point is though, he keeps getting batsmen out - whether it's the angle, the round-arm trajectory, the fact he's genuinely quick or some sort of combination of all of those things. For some reason he just keeps doing it, and he's been doing it for long enough now to say it's very likely not a coincidence.

Said it all there, Burge.

 

[vic_orthdox]

A couple of points overlooked with Johnson. He gets that subtle away swing, not that I'd call it "swing" as such. Its sort of like when you throw a bowling machine ball and it snakes; as a left armer mine head away from the right hand batsman and the opposite for a right arm thrower. The thing about it is that, its very rare and it does occur reasonably late; and it's quick enough as is for adjustment to be hard.

Secondly, his release point is in line with the batsman's eyes. Consciously or subconsiously, the positioning of the eyes help determine what to play at as they generally are in front of the stumps, and when the ball is being released in front of your eyes there is a greater tendency to need to play at the ball.

In the end, I feel like I end up repeating myself about Johnson anyway. Very hard guy to cover drive regularly, etc. etc.

 

[Top_Cat]

A couple of points overlooked with Johnson. He gets that subtle away swing, not that I'd call it "swing" as such. Its sort of like when you throw a bowling machine ball and it snakes; as a left armer mine head away from the right hand batsman and the opposite for a right arm thrower. The thing about it is that, its very rare and it does occur reasonably late; and it's quick enough as is for adjustment to be hard.

Secondly, his release point is in line with the batsman's eyes. Consciously or subconsiously, the positioning of the eyes help determine what to play at as they generally are in front of the stumps, and when the ball is being released in front of your eyes there is a greater tendency to need to play at the ball.

In the end, I feel like I end up repeating myself about Johnson anyway. Very hard guy to cover drive regularly, etc. etc.

You're not the only one. It's not even just the drift away which makes it tough but that combined with the extra pace. Not many bowlers around who are capable of combining his pace + touch of swing + trajectory.

 

[stephen]

You're not the only one. It's not even just the drift away which makes it tough but that combined with the extra pace. Not many bowlers around who are capable of combining his pace + touch of swing + trajectory.

Not only that but he often comes up with something completely unplayable. I don't think batsmen really can feel set when he's bowling. His accuracy means that he'll leak runs occasionally, but he really is the definition of an "exciting bowler". I love watching him bowl it's eyegasmic.

 

[Craig]

A couple of points overlooked with Johnson. He gets that subtle away swing, not that I'd call it "swing" as such. Its sort of like when you throw a bowling machine ball and it snakes; as a left armer mine head away from the right hand batsman and the opposite for a right arm thrower. The thing about it is that, its very rare and it does occur reasonably late; and it's quick enough as is for adjustment to be hard.

Secondly, his release point is in line with the batsman's eyes. Consciously or subconsiously, the positioning of the eyes help determine what to play at as they generally are in front of the stumps, and when the ball is being released in front of your eyes there is a greater tendency to need to play at the ball.

In the end, I feel like I end up repeating myself about Johnson anyway. Very hard guy to cover drive regularly, etc. etc.

You're not the only one. It's not even just the drift away which makes it tough but that combined with the extra pace. Not many bowlers around who are capable of combining his pace + touch of swing + trajectory.

I guess to a guy like me who has never played cricket at any high level, it looks as though the batsman are not really moving their feet. I remember seeing the Akmal brothers get out to him, trying to play cover drives and their feet standing still.

 

[Top_Cat]

I guess to a guy like me who has never played cricket at any high level, it looks as though the batsman are not really moving their feet. I remember seeing the Akmal brothers get out to him, trying to play cover drives and their feet standing still.

What Jack said about the ball being in front of your eyes rings true. It's probably a perception issue; reckon the eyes and related cortices take longer to decide the ball isn't going on with the angle but is swinging away and at Johnson's pace, it's too late to pull out of the shot.

That said, reckon it's also a perfect storm of guys good enough to get wood what he sends down. At grade level, there'd be a lot more playing and missing.

 

[Craig]

So how would a batsman counter that?

 

[Top_Cat]

So how would a batsman counter that?

Haha, good question. 60-odd batters last year couldn't. Collingwood tried getting across a lot more but then he got pinged by the in-ducker. If he's having a bad day, I guess you'd sweat on some short loose stuff. If he's in the groove, I'd probably do as Colly did and hope you spot the in-swinger quickly enough.

I dunno, any insight from an actual batter?

 

[aussie]

Yea the little school cricket i've played what Jack said about Johnson i believe it to be very true. The angle plus his pace i would think would make you want to hang back in your crease as right hander, thus making it very hard really get into a strong orthodox drive/cover drive againts him unless you spot a slower ball.

A left handed batsman may find driving him easier though.