Confidence could cure cancer

If you could sell confidence, if you could bottle it and market it, you would be richer than you could ever imagine. Confidence is what every cricketer, every sportsman, craves. If you have it, the world is your oyster. If you don’t then a shell to hide in is what you yearn for. How quickly it can come and go in this game is impossible to comprehend.

But the example of Mitchell Johnson is mystifying. No more than a fortnight ago Johnson’s confidence was down around his ankles. He couldn’t bat, he couldn’t bowl, and he couldn’t field. Like a cancer, his bowling woes had spread to every facet of his game. It hit an almost incurable point. If he had a shovel at the Gabba he would have dug a hole and climbed in. Everyone had an opinion, everyone had an answer, and everyone called for his head.

The Australian selectors took the only action they could, and left him out in Adelaide. But rather than play for WA or his grade side Wanneroo, as so many suggested he should, he spent his time away working in the nets.

Suddenly, in Perth he is super-Mitch again. He played with freedom with the bat, wielding his blade in spectacular and eye-catching fashion. He played with a natural freedom and flourish that has been absent since he tore the Proteas to shreds in March of 2009. Not surprisingly, his 62 was only his second half century since that tour, and his first in 15 Test matches.

Then, with the ball, something truly remarkable happened. He swung the ball away from the left-handers and into the right.

Johnson was feeling his way with his first two overs on the opening evening. He might have lifted a cog if Hussey had caught a catch he never saw when Andrew Strauss flashed through gully.

But on the second morning his shot of confidence came from an Alistair Cook error. Cook, choc-full of self-belief, over-extended, driving at a ball that left him with minimal footwork. Hussey pouched the chance and Mitch’s reaction was relief. The gorilla on his back reached for a nearby branch.

The Silverback had both hands on the branch in Johnson’s next over when he swerved one back to the right-handed Jonathan Trott, who was so plumb he almost walked.

The gorilla leapt off and disappeared into the jungle three balls later, as Johnson claimed Confidence’s poster boy Kevin Pietersen. Again it was a rapid inswinger that trapped England’s number four in front. Pietersen went from 227 to 0 in a fortnight, Johnson from no-hoper to hero in two days.

Johnson’s reaction to Pietersen’s removal told the story. For weeks he had not smiled. For months he’d fretted and slunk his shoulders. A lamb in lion’s clothing, they had written.

The lion had suddenly roared and Johnson raised a fist to the Press Box.

It was a gesture that some will brand ugly, some will brand immature, but at the end of the day it was something to show that he’s back. It was for the so-called “journalist” that sought quotes from his estranged mother during the 2009 Ashes. It was for those scribes that had panned his poor performances. It was for all those ex-players, who could not comprehend his plight, claiming he couldn’t “bowl a Hula hoop down a hill”.

Johnson’s demeanour changed in an instant. Prior to the over he’d been on edge, serious, and focussed. After the over he was smiling, relaxed, joking with fielding coach Mike Young on the rope at fine leg, and signing tons of autographs for the punters who, an over earlier, had treated him like a leper.

It was an extraordinary transformation. Johnson then produced his coup de grace, removing Paul Collingwood with one that pitched outside the Geordie’s off stump and seared back into his pads like an Exocet missile.

Collingwood’s footwork was a study in confidence itself, particularly when contrasted with Ian Bell. Collingwood was anchored deep in the crease. His right foot back near the stumps, like a first-time bungie jumper holding on to the rail, fearful of taking a step over the ledge. Meantime Bell moved forward and back as decisively as a champion fencer, and with the confidence, balance, and bravado of a tight-rope walker. Collingwood departed for a nervous 5. Bell compiled a classy 53. The latter really has graduated from Sherminator to Terminator and a promotion can’t be far away.

But in fairness to the combative Collingwood, he got an absolute corker from the left-armer. Johnson wasn’t standing the seam up in conventional fashion. It was the type of delivery that would have made Sir Isaac Newton sit bolt upright in his 283-year-old grave.

They are curveballs in baseball parlance. They defy any conventional coaching manual of swing bowling. And they are made even more difficult to handle given they don’t appear consistently.

Johnson had every instruction at his finger tips in the form of the bowling guru Troy Cooley and the master Dennis Lillee. But rumours suggest they haven’t re-invented the wheel. Johnson’s core strength was well down according to internal testing. His drive through the crease and general ability to keep his action, when tired, had diminished significantly.

However, for all the technical jargon, nothing can replace the confidence he received from his batting, Hussey’s first catch, and the Trott LBW.

If he could bottle that confidence up and take it wherever he goes, he and Australia will be unbeatable.

If only cricket were that simple.