Stuart Broad v Mitchell Johnson

[Furball]

Just looking at the raw wickets and average stats in the OP, Johnson's SR must be massively better than Broad's?

 

[Furball]

100% true. I reckon his defence problems were more an issue with he always wanted to attack, if that makes sense. Caught in two minds as they used to say. If he'd been given more responsibility with his batting, and had worked on his defensive game a little more, I reckon he could have been very good.

Nope. His defence problems were down to being not that good a batsman, which is why he batted 8 and averaged 22.

I'm on record as saying that an 'on' Mitchell Johnson was one of my favourite batsmen to watch, and I reckon how good he looked when he was on it has probably conned a few people into thinking he was a better bat than he actually was. He was occasionally decent value for a good troll 50 down the order but a batsman capable of batting 6 or 7 should have threatened 3 figures more than he did. And other than his 96* in South Africa the Test before he actually cracked 3 figures , I'm struggling to think of an instance where he's been left stranded on the way to a ton.

 

[Furball]

Johnson at the moment, it's utterly pointless discounting Broads rubbish start to his career, when we always remember Mitch's horror spells. So the better Test match player so far is Johnson IMHO.

In the end I hope Broad over-takes him, and am confident he will, but at the moment batting about equal and Johnson still the better bowler.

Rubbish Broad basically doesn't take wickets. He's still semi useful to his captain by virtue of rarely going round the park even when he's not bowling well enough to take wickets (which has rung true for virtually all of his career)

Bad Johnson not only struggles with wickets but gets utterly flogged to the point where you're a man down.

 

[FBU]

Johnson at the moment, it's utterly pointless discounting Broads rubbish start to his career, when we always remember Mitch's horror spells. So the better Test match player so far is Johnson IMHO.

In the end I hope Broad over-takes him, and am confident he will, but at the moment batting about equal and Johnson still the better bowler.

i like this stat, Johnson playing with Harris (17 Tests) 96 wickets at 20.71. Harris 73 wickets at 22.06

 

[Gob]

Johnson's batting is awesome on the highlight reel

as for bowling, they are totally different. Broad is very orthodox with nice smooth action, high release point, repeatable action and a pretty nice seam presentation. MJ is like the complete opposite of all of that and it was towards the very end of his carrier that he mastered how to produce an upright seam. Any way atm its MJ but Broad who i think has not turned 30 yet may well end up breaking McGrath's record so its almost certain he'll be remembered as the better bowler. Mitch's legacy will always be with 13/14 when he grew that handlebar and took the game back to a bygone era and it was some viewing.