Swing still a mystery to Johnson

Mitchell Johnson seems like he is trying to find himself. On the field he is supposed to be the tough bowler who bowls fast, gets into the batsmen's faces, and loves it when the crowds give him a bit of a stick. Off it he is supposed to be the metrosexual man from the lingerie photo shoot. Perhaps he is neither. He is not polished enough, unlike the modern cricketer who has been properly trained on how to handle the media, and on how much of himself to give out. He is soft-spoken, almost unsure of what he is saying, but definitely not plastic.

In his soft tone, he makes an admission you don't expect a fast bowler to make. At least not a fast bowler as successful as Johnson, never mind the off games he tends to have. "I generally can swing the ball in the nets," he says when asked if he can figure out why and when he finds swing and why and when he loses it. "Which I don't understand. That's where sometimes I get myself into a little bit of trouble in the games."

Johnson is at his most dangerous when he gets the ball to swing. That creates the doubt his pace needs. It's something he agrees with.

"I wouldn't say I swung the ball a lot," he says. "I did swing the ball, and I reckon it was more of a surprise ball. That's something I always work on. To use it as a surprise ball. That's when I am probably at my best. Generally across the right-hander, if I can bring the ball back in, then it gets the batter thinking which way the ball's going to go."

However, he is not striving for it. "I have spoken to Troy Cooley about it, I have spoken to Mickey Arthur [his coach at Western Australia], spoken to past bowlers, Glenn McGrath," he says. "I think, for me, I have just got to know my role. My role is of a strike bowler. I hit the deck hard, I go through, I go across. If the ball swings, it swings. That's what I need to get in my head and not go into tours thinking I can swing the ball."

In England against Pakistan, he says, he tried to swing the ball, but returned series figures of 3 for 217. "I am not a swing bowler," Johnson says. "For some reason I wanted to do that. Generally my bowling is to bang it in the wicket, try to get those caught-behinds, lbws. Something I will be trying to do here."

Johnson's days range from the lethal to the leaky, from Durban to Lord's. "It's probably more a mental thing than anything," he says. "Suddenly it doesn't click and you start thinking too many different things about your wrist position, your arm height. That's something I don't think about when I am practising, so there is no reason for me to think about it in the game. I think it's more of a mental side of things for me, something I need to block out. Has happened to me on a couple of tours."

He talks about the importance of staying away from the cricket, the days of reflection between the two series. "Being able to have that bit of time off, to be able to sit back, reflect on what has been going on, to move on, and to be here for a pretty important series. The first three weeks when I got home was just rest time. Just to relax and get my mind away from cricket. I feel a lot fresher, ready to go, lot stronger."

Johnson has spoken about the emotional side of things off the field previously. On the field, he says, he needs to keep his emotions in check. "I have probably been a bit too feisty on the last couple of tours," he says. "New Zealand, where I probably went a bit overboard. Afterwards I copped a bit from the crowd, which I actually enjoyed.

"I probably took it a touch too far emotionally. I got caught up a little bit. The guys around me that know me are able to pull me back as well and help me out. Ricky has been able to do that."

Still he doesn't want to lose out on the aggressive side of it. "The last time we were here, [Gautam] Gambhir got on a few guys' nerves," he says. "I am not going to give up. You need to have that sort of aggression as a fast bowler. Speaking to friends and families, and people that have watched the game, they like to see it as well. A little bit of aggression, as long as it doesn't overstep. It is a fine line. You have a look at Glenn McGrath, he was a prime example."

Coming into an important tour, just before the Ashes, Johnson is a bowler who knows swing makes him lethal but who has told himself to not go for it. An aggressive, emotional man who loves that part of his game but who has told himself to not cross the line. A leader of the attack who tends to concede a lot of runs when not getting wickets. Perhaps all the contradiction will be sorted out when he runs in to Virender Sehwag, three slips and a gully during a Test match.