Leading up to the semifinals of the World Cup, Mitchell Johnson had not had a great World Cup, going at over five and a half runs an over and being left in the shade by Mitchell Starc.
The numbers will say that the younger man outshone him again on Thursday, but there was no beating Johnson for impact. He dismissed Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma to effectively kill off India’s challenge. This, after having made a nine-ball 27 at the back end of Australia’s innings.
Michael Clarke was full of praise for Johnson afterwards. “Two crucial wickets, two big prize wickets, aren’t they? I’ve always said Mitchell making runs gives him confidence with the ball. Thursday was a good example of that. He probably hasn’t had the stand-out tournament that everybody expects of him all the time. But because he’s such a great performer, you expect him to take five wickets every time he walks out to the field,” he said.
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Looking ahead to Sunday’s final against New Zealand, Clarke believed Australia would have an advantage playing in familiar conditions. “The fact that the conditions are different will certainly help us, and we’ve played a fair bit of cricket throughout the summer at the MCG. The conditions are a lot different to what New Zealand have been playing in in New Zealand, but we’re going to have to play our best cricket to beat them,” said Clarke.
Steve Smith, meanwhile, was pleased with his century. Rotating the strike was something he had worked on, he revealed. “You have to try and get your angles right and try, particularly against the spinners, to beat the fielders in close to get the ball down to long-on or long-off, or to deep square or deep point. It takes a lot of practice and it’s nice to be able to bat on a wicket like that,” said Smith.