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.

The WACA

(It feels a bit awkward to post at the same time as the unfolding events in Paris, but after a certain amount of time glued to the news it starts to feel a bit voyeuristic and there's nothing more to be gained, for the time being anyway. I decided I was better employed in my role as a cricket voyeur.)

Davey Warner after 20 years at the WACA crease.

You asked for a Test series, you got the Australian Batsmen Achieve their Personal Goals show. Rumour has it New Zealand actually won the toss but McCullum said to Smith “No, no, after you.”

When the New Zealanders finally got a second wicket at the end of the day, for a moment it looked it could have been a no-ball. When the foot landed safely behind the line I said “Oh, thank God” out loud and Mr Batsy thought this was probably echoing the thoughts of Usman Khawaja.

New (or newish) Grandstand voices

Dirk Nannes is settling in nicely as one of the few ex-cricketer “expert” commentators on Grandstand not to be basically cranky (Mr Batsy’s wail of “Oh no, it’s Terry Alderman” yesterday could be heard from the other end of the house). I think it’s because he never represented Australia at Test level. Once you get that cap, it leave a mark, there will always be residual wounds, knots and itches and how you work those out (whether you work those out) will determine what kind of commentator you will be. Some carry them on their shoulders and are cranks (Alderman, Boycott, Lawson), some wear them like a red nose and are clowns (O’Keeffe, Fleming). The TV ones seem more well-adjusted on the whole than the radio ones, presumably because (1) they rub shoulders with other ex-players, a group therapy that takes the edge off and means no one can carry the “No one understands” chip or put up the “I know better than anyone else” hand; (2) they have usually had more successful careers; (3) their target audience contains fewer grumpy old men.

Dirk is so easygoing and likeable that he managed to use the expression “ipso facto” yesterday and still sound like he was down at the pub. That’s a trick Ed Cowan can only dream of.

Simon Katich. What can I say? My old flatmate gave the definitive verdict on Simon Katich on another reality show over six years ago: “He’s very Straight, isn’t he?” Nothing has changed. It seems an iceman on the field is a wooden man in the commentary box. The thrill of the hawk-eyed menace on the field ultimately relies on an certain internal stillness and rigidity of focus, and that’s what comes out on air. “You’d never see this field placing on the old WACA” was his idée fixe yesterday, said alas more times than it needed to be. (I still love you, Kat.)

This summer’s ads

Doesn’t Mitchell Johnson make it look easy in the protein powder ad? Not the lifting weights, the being on camera. Sportspeople are generally awful as models and actors but the camera loves him and he seems completely at home. Contrast Steve Smith in the Commonwealth Bank ad trying to be himself and make small talk. It’s like a bad date.

Cardiff, Day 3

 
And this is the other reason why the Australian summer 5-nils mean nothing. 'Mean nothing' in the sense of being no indicator of our likelihood of success in the UK. The UK is a parallel universe. It looks normal, but is full of tiny and slightly sinister differences like the water down going the plughole in the opposite direction and Mitchell Johnson not having a moustache. It also has a propensity for nobbling our fast bowlers. I asked Mr Batsy if the problem getting wickets was a return of the mysterious ‘swing’ issues of 2005, but he said it was just an unsympathetic pitch. He also thinks the bowlers are not the problem, which I’m not so sure of, though circumstances are no doubt against them. I think people are giving Brad Haddin a very hard time about dropping Joe Root on 0. I thought it was a bloody sharp chance in the face of a lot of unpredictable bounce. A chance, sure, but not a fluff. Joe Root seems to have become England’s Steve Smith: a businesslike 14 year old.

The ads became too much for both of us at Batsy headquarters*, so we tuned into Grandstand digital, even though it’s half a second ahead of the action. I’m sure I’ve complained about this before, but why is the balance of the commentary team so heavily skewed towards Englishmen? Among the commentators ‘proper’, I counted Jim Maxwell versus Aggers, Bloers and one who I think is called Simon. Among the ‘expert’ commentators, I counted Glenn McGrath versus Michael Vaughan, Graeme Swann and Geoffrey Boycott and I’m not sure you really can count Glenn McGrath. Where’s everyone else? My notepad is just toilet block graffiti scrawl: “Vaughan - shut the f**k up”, “F**k off, Geoff (cf. Wake up, Jeff)” and, in response to some longwinded 'nice bit of Wensleydale'-type chatter: “F**k off about the cheeses”. Grandstand, I hope for more, I expect more.

* With the exception of the excellent Marshall’s battery ad, in which Warnie does Benny Hill and which makes me laugh like a drain every time.

I suppose Mitch has no moustache because there is no “Mune” to match Movember. At first I was concerned that he didn’t have it because it would have been too easy a target of derision if it all went wrong, and that would have been a bit of a vote of no confidence in himself. In a parallel universe, it’s natural to be concerned about which Mitchell Johnson has turned up.

There is never any question about which Shane Watson has turned up: he is always exactly the same. Robert Craddock reckoned on the Back Page this week that Shane Watson was picked over Mitchell Marsh because dropping Watson for Marsh if/when he fails is a better narrative than having to go back to Watson if/when Marsh fails. So Shane Watson is, once again, playing for his career, and one has to wonder how many times one can play for one’s career before there is no longer any meaningful distinction between one’s actual career and the one being played for every time. Spot the difference!

Padded up

Obviously I had no thoughts about the 3rd Test. Or the 4th Test. Or did I? Possible scenarios :

• No thoughts about the Tests
• So absorbed in Tests that distance of reflection impossible
• Thoughts about Tests, but too absorbed in life to put them down

Maybe a bit of all three. David Warner’s century was certainly fun, and I recommend watching David Warner bat with menfolk around, preferably with a couple of them under 15. But otherwise it was all a bit of a fizzer, non? All the runs, yes, but how many runs does one batsman really need?

People will remember the runs, but I give you some other things that have left their mark on the 2011-2012 test cricket season:

The Bupa ads.

You have to dislike an ad that is coy about what it is advertising, but the real source of irritation in the "What would you do if you met the healthier version of yourself?" scenarios for me is their emotional palette. Where is less-healthy You’s suspicion and resentment? Where is healthier You’s pity and disgust ? And if science fiction has taught me anything, it is that any story that begins with you meeting another version of yourself, ends in a frantic fight to the death. Perhaps we could have a follow-up series: young woman selves suddenly leap at each other’s throats over the cafe table, older woman selves suddenly start chasing each other around the park, middle-aged man selves suddenly stab each other in the gut.

The drinks-break Gatorade bottles

These have morphed from one enormous comic phallus wheeled out onto the ground, to two smaller ones strapped to the backs of guys on segues, both remaining however within the realm of an early Woody Allen sex comedy. I look forward to the day they jump a genre and we see the drinks carriers arrive via Gatorade-bottle-shaped Thunderball jetpacks.

This year’s KFC

Still in the realm of hospitality, there’s the 12th man who carries the drinks, and then there’s the 13th and 14th men, Mitchell Johnson and Cameron White, who have the hidden but crucial task of sitting in the dressing room Fresh Testing chicken sandwiches for the rest of the team.

PS

I woke up in the middle of the night with a crucial codicil to the last post about Michael Clarke. You can’t separate the good looks from the marketability. When the Australian public looks at Michael Clarke, they see the face that launches a thousand products, but this only because when a marketer looks at Michael Clarke, they see a model. If Clarke seems especially promiscuous from a commercial point of view, it is only because he is the captain who can be let loose on an unsuspecting television audience during normal programming time and ratings periods. They don’t show those Steve Waugh Johnnie Walker ads outside of cricket matches, you know. And the "face" of Swisse during prime time is Sonia Kruger, not Ricky Ponting. For all we know, Steve Waugh was desperate to hock himself on the market, but what product would you stand him next to and make it look better?