Focused Johnson ready for England

On the banks of the Yarra River on Monday, Mitchell Johnson was tasked with bowling on a synthetic pitch to break a glass panel to set off a siren to launch the Fox Sports TV coverage of the World Cup. It sounded convoluted, and proved harder than the PR people might have imagined. Still, it took Johnson only four balls to find his radar and smash the glass. The first three were too short.

As one observer noted, you could just imagine Pat Howard logging each delivery in Johnson's workload spreadsheet. Johnson was understandably exhausted after the Boxing Day Test, given his busy year-and-a-half of cricket. He spent a month at home in Perth recovering ahead of the tri-series final, and he knows with a World Cup, tours of West Indies, England and Bangladesh, 2015 is another long year.

Australia's fast-bowling stocks are encouragingly strong, given the presence of young men like James Pattinson, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood. Asked if he would sit down with Cricket Australia and plan out his yearly workload, Johnson raised a few eyebrows by mentioning the "retire" word, despite not even being asked about it.

"I really am just taking it game by game, making the most of every opportunity I get," he said. "I'm 33 years of age, there's questions about when I'm going to retire, I'm sure, or if I'm going to play all formats for the next couple of years, or whatever it is, but I've just got to focus on the games I'm playing in and play the best cricket I can, and enjoy it."

Australia would certainly like Johnson to retain his game-by-game focus for now; their next match is against England in the World Cup opener on Saturday. After dominating the home Ashes against them last summer, he met them just once this season and promptly skittled their top order and took 3 for 27 in the tri-series final in Perth.

"I think he's got a little mental edge over them at the moment," Steven Smith said of Johnson and England. It is hard to argue; England's captain Eoin Morgan perhaps summed up the uncertainty England have over Johnson by leaving a delivery from him at the WACA and being bowled, then observing that Johnson wasn't actually swinging the ball.

"I'm not going to get into what he said, but I'm a fast, aggressive bowler and I think I've proved that throughout my career, I like to bowl short," Johnson said. "Sometimes I swing the ball, sometimes I don't. But my consistency has improved over the last few years and that's what's helped me over the last few years. I've just got to keep playing my game and not get involved in mind games."

A few minutes later, though, Johnson couldn't help himself when asked for a response to Stuart Broad's comment that Australia might not make the World Cup final. It might have been a throwaway line from Broad when asked who he thought would be there on March 29, but to Johnson it was "a pretty silly comment ... he's only setting himself up for disaster."

Johnson is well aware that nothing that has come before this - even the Ashes campaigns - will be quite the same as a World Cup at home, and the pressure will be enormous when he stands at the top of his mark on Saturday in front of a packed MCG. Estimates of the crowd have hovered around the 90,000 mark, and Jonson said he hoped he would thrive on the opportunity.

"It's nice to stand in front of a big crowd like that," Johnson said. "It's only happened on a handful of occasions for me, being able to play in front of a big crowd. But I think there's going to be a different intensity to the crowd. That's something I'll take in when I get out there and get that chance with the ball in hand, really take it in but then really focus on what I need to do and go out there and bowl well for Australia."

Unlike some members of Australia's squad, Johnson has plenty of World Cup experience, having already been part of two World Cup squads. In 2011 he was Australia's strike bowler during the unsuccessful campaign in Asia, and in 2007 he travelled with the group in the West Indies without ever being called up on in a match - the same as Brad Haddin - as Australia went through undefeated.

"I learnt how to run and keep really fit," Johnson said of the 2007 tournament. "It was actually really good, just to be able to keep ready for that opportunity. I was always making sure I did everything I could at training, like Brad Haddin was, so I was just making sure I was prepared.

"That was one big thing, that preparation side of things, and just being able to see how the senior guys of the team, Matty Hayden, Ricky Ponting, Brett Lee, how they prepared and played the game, the intensity that they went at, it was really good to see. There was a great feeling in the team and that feeling is in this team right now."