Danish Kaneria outwits Mitchell Johnson

One thing we don’t like about modern cricket is the long batting order. We want to see the best batsmen against the best bowlers and then we want the lower order to just fold so that we can get on to the next innings.

In truth, these long batting orders are no such thing. Test pitches are more forgiving these days, so mediocre batsmen can score well. Yesterday, Mitchell Johnson – a reasonable batsman with a Test hundred – was asked a couple of questions by the man who sounds like he should be a Nordic aviary, Danish Kaneria. Mitchell Johnson did not have the answers.

If it were a French test, Johnson would have said ‘boeuf?’ in the vain hope that might have made sense. It didn’t.

A couple of wide deliveries were left alone. Johnson looked like he knew what he was doing, but they were wide enough he could leave them without needing to know which they were spinning.

A straighter ball then had to be played at because if it were a leg break, it would have hit the stumps. Was it a leg break? No, it was a googly. Johnson’s defensive push missed it by about a foot. “Boeuf?”

Next ball was fractionally wider and maybe a bit fuller. Is it the googly again, Mitchell? Kaneria’s leg break splattered the stumps.

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