Felt sick after a bouncer hit Virat Kohli’s helmet, says Mitchell Johnson
Feb 7, 2019 at 12:54 PM
Former Australian left-hander pacer Mitchel Jhonson was upset when he bowled a bouncer to Virat Kohli which hit on his helmet during the first Test against India at Adelaide in 2014. Jhonson claimed it in his autobiography- ‘Resilient’.
Describing one of the terrible incidents he wrote, “It was my job to intimidate batsmen. To bowl short and fast. To make them play from the fear of being hit by the ball. I questioned all of that. And when I did bowl a bouncer and hit Virat Kohli on the helmet in Adelaide during the first Test match after Hughesy’s death, I felt sick. I couldn’t drop short with any conviction for a long time after that.”
In his autobiography- ‘Resilient’, the former pacer has written many interesting facts regarding his career. He has described the death of Phil Hughes as one of the horrible incidents of his life. He has stated that he started looking cricket from a different angle after the death of his beloved friend.
He wrote, “I think I was in as good a place with my cricket as I had ever been, but my love of the game was put into perspective before the start of the 2014–15 season. Not many people loved cricket as much as Phillip Hughes did. When he died – two days after being struck in the neck by a ball – it was hard to love it or play it the same way I had when he was alive. That horrible tragedy changed so many things.”
Johnson stated that he felt awful for Hughes family after Phil’s death and the impact that the incident had on the players was indescribable. “I wrestled with the fact that it could have been me. I wasn’t scared of being hurt; I was terrified that it could have been me that hurt him.”
Johnson went to claim that he was never the same bowler after Hughes’s death. He found it hard to look at Phil’s picture that was put up in the dressing room ahead of the first Test against India in December 2014 at Adelaide.