Mo Jo

Mitch casts a spell.

Mitchell Johnson's retirement lets me pick up exactly where I left off last time, when I marvelled at his talents as a model. Now I'm being invited to step back and appraise his contribution as a whole, I'm just going to say the same thing writ large: I think I'll remember Mitchell Johnson as the only player to have brought genuine glamour to the team since Shane Warne. It's not the same thing as good looks, although I am partial to a dimple. It's being able to create a sort of haze that draws and holds the eyes, that casts a spell over the onlooker, the spectator, the batsman.

As with Warnie, the appreciation of the glamour is mixed with ambivalence. In Warnie's case it had to do with reservations about Warnie the person, or so I am told. In Johnson's case, it was the old "mercurial" flicker. It was one of the ways he made you watch him – you'd hold your breath during his run-up and scrutinise the release, the trajectory, trying to work out which Mitch had turned up that day. Warnie had the hide of a rhinoceros, whatever was happening on or off the field, he banished question marks from your mind as he did from his own. Mitchell was skittish like a racing horse and so visibly tormented when things weren't going well. I ranked him no.1 in the "inner turmoil" (and outer turmoil) stakes during a bad patch in 2011 . The fact that he seemed to be one of the nicest people on earth just made it more agonising, but when it all came together... ahhh. Pure joy, great theatre.

I liked watching him bat almost more than watching him bowl, and I liked watching him bat almost more than watching anyone else bat - relaxed, clean, handsome. I just liked watching him.

Johnson made his debut on the Test team the summer after Warnie left. Who will be the next homme fatal?

Dirk Nannes

... has dropped rather on my "likeability" meter. I didn't hear his comment that the Australian team not rushing after Taylor to congratulate him was "horrendous" behaviour, I only heard his follow-up when he said it was trivial "in itself" but significant against a background of Australian lack of sportsmanship. The problem with taking "backgrounds" into account is that's also how prejudice works, and bad relationships for that matter. You see someone's actions only through the lens of what you already think and expect of them, and so that's all you see. In any case, whether he is right or wrong, he is certainly not saying anything new, which is why I turned off the radio when they started reading out love letters from listeners saying how glad they were that "someone" had "finally" said what he said. "Everyone" has "always" said what he said.

Mixed messages

All the ads during the cricket are for hardware stores except for the ad for the Windies test series that says don't be the guy at the hardware store.