Can South Africa stop the marauding Mitchell Johnson?

One of the key reasons behind Australia’s 281-run mauling of South Africa is that its batsmen were able to handle the home team’s chief pace threats, Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel, far better than the Proteas handled Johnson.

Johnson’s career-best figures of 12-127 came on a pitch where Australia batted first and scored 397 and 4-290 declared.

The consistent struggles of all but AB de Villiers and, to a lesser extent, Hashim Amla among the South Africans to face Johnson suggested the left-armer had to have been bowling decisively faster than the other five specialist seamers in the match.

The results, however, indicated that for pace alone there was little between Johnson and Morkel.

In the first innings Johnson bowled at an average of 143.9km/h and a peak of 150.6km/h, with Morkel at an average of 143.6km/h and a peak of 149.5km/h.

The fast delivery for that innings actually came from Australia’s Ryan Harris with 151.4km/h.

In the second innings the supremely fit Johnson edged ahead, with a 2km/h buffer for average over his lanky South African rival and a 4.5km/h buffer for peak pace.

Johnson bowled just over 33 overs for the match. In the first innings the only batsmen to survive the equivalent of two overs against him were de Villiers and Robin Peterson, who respectively faced 50 and 14 deliveries. De Villiers’ performance was particularly impressive, scoring 40 runs from those 50 deliveries.
In the second innings the only South African to pass that threshold was Amla with 40 balls, the first of which hit his helmet.

Half of South Africa’s specialist batsmen were dismissed by Johnson in each innings, with only de Villiers (62 balls) and Amla (43) able to face more than three overs against him for the match. Amla was the only South African specialist batsman not to fall to Johnson across the match.

Smith and Faf du Plessis between them faced Johnson for only 10 balls in the match.

In the first innings Johnson, according to the Hawk-Eye beehive that maps the height of deliveries, claimed four wickets from deliveries at shoulder height or above. Just as significant the South African batsmen were, between them, only able to play one scoring shot to the deliveries.

Seeing this present situation it seems very difficult for South-Africa to stop Mitchell Johnson.