Johnson v McLaren: a tale of two blows

Over the last six months or so I've often found myself wondering whether we underrate the bravery of cricketers, and batsmen particularly. Dan Brettig touched on this in his wonderful recent essay on Mitchell Johnson's bouncers and the resultant reign of terror against English and South African batsmen in the past year.

The section of that piece in which Brettig chronicles Johnson's intimidation of the left-handed lower-order batsmen from South Africa resonated most with me because in the recent ODI tri-series in Zimbabwe, I had been fascinated by the way Johnson had again roughed up the South African allrounder Ryan McLaren, breaking his arm in what to me was the defining moment of the series.

"Defining" probably sounds a little odd, because Australia failed to win the series, but for me, as for many others, I'm sure, that result will be immaterial in even six months' time because we never think back on these types of tournaments with anything but an eye for a few standout moments, and Johnson had arguably the most dramatic of those. I'll also think about Faf du Plessis' incredible streak of form, of course, but mainly I'll think about the resumption of that battle between McLaren and Johnson.

The back story is important. Six months back, amid Australia's triumphant Test series win, Johnson skittled and possibly scared a number of South African batsmen just as he had done to equally credentialed ones from England before, but McLaren's demise stood out. His unenviable task in the first Test was to try and replace the irreplaceable Jacques Kallis. What a time to attempt to impose yourself on Test cricket, with arguably the fastest bowler in the world in the most devastating form of his career. If Kallis himself was playing the second Test of his career, he might have struggled.

McLaren is nobody's idea of a top-order batsman but he's definitely brave, committed and aggressive, so it was reasonable to assume he'd do okay in Centurion batting at No. 7. He looks the South African cricket archetype too: tall, muscular, tanned and broad. Like Kallis, you could convince a cricketaphobe that he was a Springbok and not a Protea. He doesn't look like someone who has ever been bullied in his life. Johnson just smashed him, though.

McLaren never showed fear but he scratched around with uncertainty and that was enough to signal to Johnson that he could destroy him. I haven't seen enough of McLaren batting well, which he definitely has done, to know where his strengths lie, but his weakness against Johnson's wild pace could be spotted from a planet away. He seemed incapable of evading short balls. The moment when that dawns on a bowler is fascinating, because the bowler is presented with options. He can just pin the batsman in front or bowl him out with a fast yorker, as Johnson eventually did, but he can also toy with the batsman and hit him, which Johnson also did. The ball started to follow McLaren, as it sadistically does when a batsman is unsettled.

The blow to McLaren's head in that Test was the worst, as his helmet came right in line with the ball. Even before that, he was in trouble. Every attempt at positivity was crushed. It was horrible and captivating, just as Michael Clarke's Cape Town battle with Morne Morkel had been. Clarke survived that and then played arguably his greatest innings ever, but early on he had looked a candidate for pity. McLaren didn't survive, though, and the first-innings splatter of his stumps by Johnson must have brought with it some relief.

A blow to the body sometimes gives off a hollow or echoing thud, like a bass drum with a blanket stuffed inside it. Those take the wind out of a batsman and maybe crack a rib or two

The head shot came when he was trying to save the match, and it was a frightening sight. McLaren fell to his knees and blood flowed from his head. He was withdrawn from the next two Tests with headaches and didn't play for the rest of the domestic summer, so by the time he faced Johnson again in Harare a few weeks back, he had had a full six months to ponder their two encounters.

Morbidly, I'd been looking forward to their reunion but had to wait until the second game between the sides, because South Africa had batted well enough in the first that McLaren wasn't required. I wondered whether he had spent much of the intervening time rocking onto the back foot in the nets and honing his evasive techniques. If he had you couldn't tell. Facing his tenth ball that innings he dropped his hands down to a ball that reared awkwardly and was struck a fearful blow to the arm.

There are many sounds that a cricket ball makes when it hits flesh. A blow to the body sometimes gives off a hollow or echoing thud, like a bass drum with a blanket stuffed inside it. Those take the wind out of a batsman and maybe crack a rib or two. At a minimum they always bruise, a bruise that spreads and stabs at the player every time he turns sideways, laughs or coughs.

Arms are different; the contact can be glancing and sound like a slap, but this one really pinned McLaren. His arm was stiff and flexed and the ball cannoned into him flush, so the sound was more like a loud crack. It was so loud, in fact, that you could clearly hear it through the effects microphones. It was basically the arm equivalent of the head shot he'd worn in their last meeting, and came after a near carbon copy of the evasive technique he had used earlier. The only difference was this time McLaren hadn't completely ducked his head. It was progress in a small way.

I'll admit that I had actually expected it to happen but it was still gripping. Once it did happen, in the microseconds afterwards, I assumed that McLaren would need to go off the ground immediately. When news came later that his arm was broken, it only confirmed what looked obvious to the eye, but in that moment McLaren didn't even rub it. He just stood there on the spot and stared back down the pitch at Johnson. Never touched it. By that point the game was almost, but not quite, out of reach but he courageously clung to his wicket for another 31 deliveries; 53 minutes in all. McLaren made 24 from 41 and combined with du Plessis for a 73-run partnership. South Africa lost, so technically it meant nothing but I'll probably never forget it.

In the time since, I've thought about that encounter a number of times and wondered how to contextualise it and establish what it means in the grander scheme of things, but I'm not really sure yet. Has McLaren done it often enough to be South Africa's Bruce Laird? Not really. Did the game even matter? Probably not. Does any game ever really matter? That's perhaps best left unexplored.

All I've concluded is that no matter what McLaren does for the rest of his career - and I still haven't actually seen him bat well, but do hold out some hope I will - I'll always remember him as the guy who stood there and got hammered by one of the most frightening bowlers in the game's history and just stared back down the pitch at him.

And he never even rubbed it.