Batting confidence breeds Johnson's bowling belief

On Friday, Rohit Sharma yapped at Mitchell Johnson the batsman. On Saturday, Rohit Sharma was out for a second-ball duck to Mitchell Johnson the bowler. It is easy to draw a link between the two events. Too easy. It doesn't really matter what Rohit said. What mattered was India's bowling over the next two hours. They didn't so much poke the beast as feed it.

Short balls were pulled with disdain. They were cut. They were ramped. Johnson hadn't scored a run in his past three Test innings. Here he made 88. And if there's one thing that history tells us about Johnson's batting, it's that you don't want to face his bowling just after he's made runs. India found that out to their detriment on Saturday morning.

Eleven times Johnson has scored at least fifty in a Test innings. Now consider these figures. In the bowling innings immediately before his fifty-plus scores (in the same Test) he has taken nine wickets at 50.22. In the bowling innings immediately after his fifty-plus scores (in the same Test) he has taken 26 wickets at 16.84. For Johnson, batting confidence breeds bowling belief.

So it was on the fourth morning at the Gabba, where Johnson is becoming a creature of habit. Last summer in Brisbane he rescued Australia from top-order wobbles with a half-century against England, then backed it up with 4 for 61. This summer in Brisbane he rescued Australia from top-order wobbles with a half-century against India, then backed it up with 4 for 61. Same ground, same story, same figures.

On the first day of this Test, captain Steven Smith ran from second slip to chat to Johnson in the middle of an over. The next ball was a bouncer. It was easy to deduce that Smith had asked him to bowl it. On the fourth morning Johnson needed no such encouragement, and twice in his first over bounced Cheteshwar Pujara.

Next over Johnson sent down a ball short of a length that Virat Kohli chopped on. Next over after that a fearsomely quick short ball surprised Ajinkya Rahane and flew off his glove to gully. Johnson celebrated with his team-mates while the third umpire checked for a no-ball - it was literally a line-ball decision that could have gone either way - and then went back to his mark.

He was there at the top of his run-up when Rohit arrived at the crease. Second ball, Rohit was done by extra bounce and movement away, and edged behind. India were 4 for 86. When Johnson came to the crease on day three, Australia were 161 behind and in trouble. When he returned to finish India's second innings with his fourth wicket, Australia needed 128 to win, and were in command.

"He certainly turned it on today for that little spell that cracked the game open for us," captain Smith said of Johnson.

With both bat and ball, Johnson turned the match Australia's way. He was not named Man of the Match, though. That honour went to Smith for his first-innings 133. But during his 148-run partnership with Johnson, Smith took a back seat.

"It probably isn't too wise, is it?" Smith said when asked about the advisability of sledging Johnson. "It was just outstanding the way he came out and batted in the first innings and took the bowlers on. It got them off their lengths a little bit. It probably helped me up the other end as well ... That was a big turning point in the game, to get that partnership there with Mitch."

Even when Australia looked a little shaky in their small chase, Johnson still had a role to play. At 6 for 122, he walked out with six runs still required and only three more batsmen still to come. He got a couple of runs and Mitchell Marsh finalised the win with a boundary.

Johnson shook hands with the Indians, first a matter of whoever was closest, and then a sort of queue formed. By coincidence rather than design, Rohit had missed Johnson on both fronts. Johnson realised, and ran over to Rohit to ensure his hand was shaken too. Whatever was said on the Gabba stayed there. India should make sure their loose bowling to Johnson doesn't follow them to Melbourne either.