It wasn’t a long time ago that Ishant Sharma and Mitchell Johnson were considered among the most promising cricketers in the world. Blessed with height and disconcerting pace, within two years of their respective debuts they were leading the charge for their respective countries. The 21-year-old Ishant had formed a formidable new-ball pairing with Zaheer Khan, and the 28-year-old Johnson had been elevated as Australia’s main strike bowler during the Ashes.

But the second half of 2009 proved to be a testing period for them. Suddenly, the same experts who had praised them started calling for their heads, and of late they managed to retain their places in their national teams only because of their skippers’ confidence in their abilities.

The axe that had been dangling over Ishant’s neck for a few weeks now finally fell in Hyderabad on Thursday. Ironically, Johnson, who was expected to spearhead the Australian attack in Brett Lee’s absence, was also left out for the same match by Ricky Ponting. Johnson had described himself as a perfectionist in the build-up to the series. “I’m always hard on myself. Whenever I start bowling waywardly, I end up putting too much pressure on myself,” he had said. The Queensland fast bowler enjoyed a few moments of success, but for the most part he was left shaking his head. For example, he picked up three wickets in India’s mammoth total in Nagpur, but also proved to be the most expensive bowler in the match.

“I will be trying to add more variety to my bowling and try to keep the batsmen guessing,” Johnson, who won the ICC International Cricketer of the Year award recently, had added. But there was little variety on offer on this tour, as he went at an economy rate of 6.54 while picking up six wickets in the first four matches.

... contd.