Mitchell Johnson has a new nickname
Australia's leading pace bowler Mitchell Johnson has revealed that he had been named "Ol' Man River" by his teammate Josh Hazlewood and other fast bowlers in the group.
"I'm one of the old guys now," Johnson was quoted saying by Cricket Australia. "They call me Ol' Man River."
Johnson has been rested for Bangladesh tour and will not feature in the domestic Matador BBQs ODI Cup. He recently joined the 300 wickets club during the recently concluded Ashes series.
The 33-year-old fast bowler is waiting for the neighbours, New Zealand team to arrive in November. He has been following the Kiwis very closely and believes they are playing really good cricket all around currently.
"We're coming up against New Zealand who have been playing really good cricket the past two years," Johnson said. "They've got a ton of experience now, but look, we're confident. We're all about playing good, aggressive, hard cricket and hopefully we'll be able to do that this summer."
Johnson has represented Australia in 71 Test matches where he has 30 wickets to his name. The left-arm bowler is the most senior bowler in the team currently and he doesn't want to repeat the Ashes mistakes again in the series against the Kiwis.
"I thought we had a better side," Johnson said of Australia's 3-2 loss to England. "I think after that second test at Lord's (where Australia won by 405 runs) we were probably a little bit overconfident maybe."
According to Johnson, England outperformed Australia in the Ashes. "They outperformed us in certain areas but they sort of played very similar cricket to what we did – one team would dominate and the other team would fold. It was a very strange series," he concluded.
Former Australian skipper who retired after the Ashes loss, Michael Clarke, said that the competition was pretty even in the Ashes between both the teams.
"(The Ashes) was extremely inconsistent from both parties," Clarke said. "You look at the way we played at Lord's and The Oval, we really outplayed England in those two Test matches. Unfortunately in the other three it was the opposite."
He continued: "As a team we spoke before the West Indies and England about being more consistent away from home and I think that will still be our greatest challenge as an Australian team moving forward."