Johnson’s 392-page autobiography is exhaustive in its chronicling of how a boy from Townsville came to be Australian cricketing royalty
Sam Perry26-Nov-2016There has never been greater competition for sports-loving eyeballs in bookstores this Christmas, and jammed in amid the glut of cricket memoirs comes . Peter Lalor of the ably managed the words.The cover fronts with a close-up of Johnson’s face; he looks at once stern and gentle. When you learn his story, that stands to reason. That his name is embossed in gold on a sleeve wrapping a weighty hardcover is less understandable, because Johnson has never pretended to be a stately figure. But when it comes to Australian cricket, alpha showdowns don’t cease upon retirement – they extend to autobiographies too.Johnson’s journey to Australian fast-bowling royalty – and he does belong there – is genuinely compelling, and never more so than when one contemplates the sheer rapidity of his elevation into the heady world of professional cricket. He literally didn’t own a pair of cricket boots when Rod Marsh thrust him into Australia’s Under-19s team (to the chagrin of many of the other players’ parents).But like so many modern-day players with stories to tell and sell, Johnson in his memoirs struggles to shine a light on his professional years that hasn’t already been shone.It’s barely his fault. The ubiquity of media means that many of us are well-acquainted with each star’s road. With Johnson, we know about the potential, the pace, the doubt, and the glorious return. At 392 pages, is nothing if not thorough in its chronicling of each plot point in Johnson’s career. However, like so many other books, it does settle into a mechanical rhythm of moving from match to match to match, serving more as a reminder than much else more. This isn’t to say there aren’t some highlights: his account of South Africa away and England at home – especially his 7 for 40 in Adelaide – will provide sweet tidings for Johnson’s Australian readers looking for something soothing after Christmas (and the South African series).When you can’t bring the matches to life, many ex-players understandably go where punters can’t, by turning their autobiographies into titillating tales of the dressing room. To Johnson’s great credit, it should be said, admirably resists joining this race to the bottom. Yes, he covers “Homeworkgate” and Katich v Clarke, but not gratuitously. It would be incorrect to put this down to any kind of naiveté or aloofness on Johnson’s part. While he makes no pretensions to social over-analysis, he does have a discreet sense of old-school decency (as opposed to the chest-beating type), and it emerges in the book. So rather than view Australian cricket’s great in-house stoushes through the prism of base-level gossip, he places them in an altogether more relevant context: that of Australian cricket’s struggle for cohesion under Michael Clarke’s influence. His notes are diplomatic, subtle, but communicate enough. Upon Ricky Ponting’s departure, Johnson writes, “When he left he took something with him”, and while he describes Clarke as “tactically excellent”, there is a seismic difference in the superlatives he chooses to use for each captain.But where Johnson’s cricket yarns might lack mystery, his upbringing does not – at least in a cricketing sense. While Dennis Lillee’s description of him as a “once in a generation” fast bowler probably belongs in cricket cliché scrabble, how Johnson arrived at the moment is probably less well known. He was a genuine “roughy” from the bush, who, at the time of Lillee’s spotting, claims he didn’t even know he was quick. The image he paints of arriving two days later to the Australian U-19 camp in Adelaide, long-haired, clad in a black Slayer T-shirt, owning no cricket kit, illustrates just how naturally talented he must have been. It also leaves you desperate for a picture of Johnson bowling in the nets with said T-shirt and hair. His emergence from the back of Townsville nonetheless provides an instructive backdrop to his entire career. With respect to the concept of lifelong learning, here was a guy who was picking up how to play cricket while competing in the Sheffield Shield.Von Krumm PublishingJohnson’s rawness of talent and technique lent a youth to him that seemed to remain for his career. To that end, it’s easy to forget that his formative cricketing years were spent alongside Shield warhorses like Jimmy Maher, Andy Bichel, Michael Kasprowicz, Andrew Symonds, Ashley Noffke and James Hopes. Johnson, who at one stage says that all he ever did was “just wang it down” – writes with pride about the influence of their old-school values on him. It was an influence that remained with him until the close of his Test career in 2015.The stories of so many champion players tell of being chastened by early and unexpected failure, and Johnson’s mid-career walk through the shadows of cricketing decline are surely as dark as any. His description of the relentless carousel of international cricket travel, and the collapse of his body, technique and confidence, does help the reader appreciate the triumph that followed. We all know the Barmy Army song about him, but to properly consider that Johnson often could not rid his mind of it is illustrative of the difficult mental space he occupied for years.The book isn’t written completely in Johnson’s voice, however. There are welcome flourishes of content from people close to him, most of whom exist outside the insular cricketing sphere. Their inclusion here speaks of a man who never originally defined himself through his performances, but one who nonetheless harnessed his considerable abilities to achieve greatly in an unerringly human way.Mitchell Johnson: Resilient
by Mitchell JohnsonABC Books, 2016
A$49.95
