Australia’s pace spearhead Mitchell Johnson has been described as offering only a “damp” threat to Pakistan’s batsmen on United Arab Emirates pitches and has been warned to adapt his game.
A column in The National newspaper in Abu Dhabi, host city for Thursday’s second Test, says the left-arm quick needs to follow in the footsteps of other pace greats.
According to the column Johnson needs to find a way to succeed on flat tracks, like pace greats Wasim Akram, Imran Khan, Richard Hadlee and Malcolm Marshall did.
After taking 37 Ashes wickets last summer and claiming another 22 victims in the three-Test series in South Africa ending in March, Johnson was no match-winner in last week’s first Test on a dull surface in Dubai.
Pakistan won by 221 runs and treated Johnson as a threat to be contained, taking no risks.
Johnson claimed 3-39 off 31 overs in the first innings and 0-34 off 12 in the second dig.
“Johnson had a good first Test in Dubai, or rather, a good first innings,” columnist Osman Samiuddin said.
“But overall the threat felt felt damp, like Pakistan had managed to throw a big wet blanket over a raging inferno.”
England’s James Anderson and South Africa’s Dale Steyn are examples for Johnson to follow in terms of making the best of unhelpful conditions, the writer says.
“Pakistan did not look especially put out by him; occasionally troubled and harried, but not overawed,” Samiuddin said.
“What they really need is for Johnson to become the bowler here that he is elsewhere.
“The head-scrambling hurry, the venom that he has found in Australia, has been absent.
“He has never had the kind of skills that Steyn and Anderson, among others, have had.
“His wrist is set up so differently to those two that he will not ever be able to do with the ball what they do.”
Samiuddin said Johnson’s method against South Africa and England was to come at them “with a hammer”.
“It was exhilarating and spectacular, not clever and not any less effective for it on those surfaces,” he said.
“But clever — or cleverer — is what he has to be here if he and Australia are to break through their regional rut.”
