'I love being intimidating'

If his cricketing career had not worked out, Mitchell Johnson would almost certainly be in the Australian Army right now. As it is, his national service is of an entirely different, and vastly more public, variety. While many of the mates with whom he grew up in Townsville, Queensland, have gone on to serve with the coalition forces in Iraq, Johnson's own tour of duty begins on the battlefields of South Wales in little over a fortnight's time.

There's little question he is ready for the scrap. Johnson was once memorably described by his mentor, Dennis Lillee, as a "once in a generation" bowler - an unhelpful accolade for a player who was destined to reach his prime at precisely the moment that two men who truly earned that tag, Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath, passed theirs. But posterity may yet prove that Lillee was spot on in his judgment, for Johnson has overcome an uncertain start to his international career to rise with dizzying haste through the ranks.

In the 2008-09 season just gone, he added raw pace to his natural left-arm swing, and impeccable control to a bubbly aggression, and with 60 wickets in 12 Tests became quite possibly the most complete fast bowler in the world. Factor in a batting average of 85.00 during Australia's brilliant series victory in South Africa in March, comprising a maiden Test century and an unbeaten 96, and we're looking at a man who has the tools to decide the Ashes.

It's not bad for a kid who fell into a professional career somewhat by accident. "I had an opportunity to go down to a fast-bowling clinic [in Queensland] where Dennis [Lillee] found me," Johnson recalled. "I went down there for the day and there was really a fair bit of luck in it, to be honest. If I hadn't gone to that camp I probably would have been in the army.

"I've had friends that have gone over to Iraq and all that, and have been shot at, and a friend who is a tank driver who's been over as well. They get in the action. It's pretty scary. But I'm quite proud of where I am, and I wouldn't give it up for the world. Speaking to my friends, they love what they do as well, so I feel grateful to them for looking after us. They do an excellent job."

So too does Johnson in a very different way. Any Englishman who believes that the Ashes are headed home this summer may wish to open up YouTube and dig out some precautionary footage. Johnson's recent roll of honour includes a spectacular spell of 8 for 61 in defeat against South Africa in Perth, and a fearsome performance in a seismic victory in Durban three months later, when he broke Graeme Smith's hand for the second time in three Tests, before bouncing through South Africa's middle order in a spell that induced nothing short of panic.

"I love being intimidating, that's what being a fast bowler is all about," Johnson said. "It's probably taken a while for it to come out of me, but when I started to play for Australia it was a different situation, with different guys around the team. I just remember first coming in, it was quite daunting - with McGrath, Ponting, Langer and Warne, you wonder if you belong in the side. But now I'm feeling a lot more comfortable and more confident with how I play the game. It's definitely come out in the last few months.

"You aim to intimidate the guy at the other end, and that was definitely my plan in South Africa. I really wanted to get up their batsmen and let them know we were here and seriously trying to win the match and the series. That's something I'm definitely going to take into my game more often. I'm not verbal or in your face in the way that some guys are, I just try to let my bowling do the talking, with maybe a few short ones. You want to stamp your authority as quickly as you can."

He's done just that of late - so firmly, in fact, that for the first time in a long time there is little lamenting for Australia's greats of yesteryear. Instead there's an excited surge forward to find out what the young bucks can do. "I think that win in South Africa was very important," Johnson said. "We went into the tour with a win in the last Test [in Australia], with a lot of confidence and a lot of fresh players. It was a pretty big win for us on their soil, against probably the unofficial No. 1 team, so we were stoked about it.

"We had been going through that patch where people were comparing us and saying that Australia's fast-bowling stocks weren't there any more. Personally I didn't take any of that on board. I pushed that to one side, and just wanted to be myself. I think that's what the younger guys have done as well. A lot of the bowlers are quite similar in age - myself, [Peter] Siddle and [Ben] Hilfenhaus, we get on well off the field, and we get on with the older guys as well. We can talk among ourselves and be confident with each other.

"I've enjoyed my cricket and the guys I've been playing with in the last 12 months or so. We've had our transition and a lot of the older guys are gone now, but I haven't put a lot of pressure on myself in this leader-of-the-attack business. I've enjoyed the challenge of it all, but I just do my hard work off the field and try to lead by example. It's great having Stuart [Clark] and Brett [Lee] with their experience, so I'm not going to change anything."

Clark, however, is unlikely to make the starting XI in Cardiff, and Lee - for all the faith the selectors have invested in him - is struggling to prove he's still the bowler he once was. The contemptuous treatment meted out on him by Chris Gayle in Australia's short-lived Twenty20 campaign did little to enhance his menacing credentials, and increasingly it seems likely that his long-held enforcer's role will have to pass to his younger team-mate.

When asked if he was now quicker than Lee, Johnson demurred, clearly mindful of his team-mate's wounded pride. But whereas for Lee, speed is everything - "I'm a pure fast bowler", he declared at Hove on Monday - Johnson's game is every bit as much about subtlety. In particular, he has mastered an ability to vary the height of his arm in delivery, to capitalise on the swing when the going is good, but also to sling the ball, Malinga-style, into the ribs, when pace off the pitch is the only weapon available.

"I've been working on swinging the ball, getting that swing back into the right-handers, but if the swing's not there, I generally try to hit the deck hard, " he said. "I guess being a left-hander, over the last few months I've noticed that ball into the ribs, they don't really like it, so we always talk about getting a nice one right at the top of the badge. I don't know if I want to give out too much information, but it's something I have been working on, and it has taken a bit of time to work on. It's not something that just happens in games.

"It depends on what the ball is doing. If it's swinging or if it reverses, my arm is taller, as it was when I first started out. In Queensland I used to swing it a lot, but when I started bowling first-change for Australia, I lost my swing and got a bit confused, and started slinging the ball and hitting the deck hard. That's when my arm height changed, but I've worked with Troy Cooley and Dennis Lillee, and it's still a work in progress."

Cooley's influence will be especially galling for England. He was, of course, the man credited with the creation of England's Ashes "Fab Four" in 2005 - and one of the few men who ever worked out what made Steve Harmison tick. His relationship with Johnson sounds, if anything, even cosier than the alliance he formed with Harmison, Andrew Flintoff, Matthew Hoggard and Simon Jones four years ago.

"I've known Troy since I was 17, and I'm 27 now, so we've had a lot to do with each other," Johnson said. "He knows all the players individually and personally, and that helps with being able to talk to him about your bowling. He'll let you do what you need to do in a training session, but then give you the space to figure it out for yourself. But you can go up and talk to him, and if you don't figure it out, he'll tell you."

Cooley will doubtless have one or two hints to throw in about bowling to England's big-name players as well, and already Johnson's duel with Kevin Pietersen is shaping up as one of the highlights of the summer. "Is he vulnerable? I think there's definitely going to be a lot of pressure on him, so we're looking to get him as cheaply as we can. It's an Ashes series, so I don't think we need to say anything about Pietersen. The less we give him the better."

With his languid confidence, it's easy to forget that Johnson has yet to play in an Ashes series, having been 12th man throughout the 2006-07 triumph. "I'm pretty casual and laid-back," he said. "I pretty much smile on the field and try to enjoy my cricket. From a bowler's point of view, I'm just focused on that first over, especially the first ball, it's pretty important to be on the money or get that bounce, or whatever it is. You want to set the tone early, that's for sure."