Mitchell Johnson admits that Hughes' death affected his bowling

Mitchell Johnson admits that Hughes’ death affected his bowling: Australian pacer Mitchell Johnson hasn’t quite been the ignited Johnson he was. He has had a forgetful world cup campaign, where he was clearly outplayed by teammate Mitchell Starc and a disastrous IPL, where he hardly troubled the batsmen. In a recent interview, the fiery Australian pacer has admitted that the demise of fellow Aussie cricketer Phil Hughes took a toll on him mentally and hindered his performances at times.

The unexpected death of Hughes in November last year took the cricketing world by rude shock and the Aussie cricketers plunged into sadness as they had lost a passionate cricketer in the freak incident. Several players, including captain Michael Clarke who had considered Hughes as a brother, were emotionally affected and Johnson has said he was just trying to “get through” it all.

Ever since the 2013 Ashes when he bamboozled the English batsmen with his bowling and mesmerized one and all with his fiery pace and bounce, he hasn’t been able to live upto the expectations weighed on him and has struggled with his bowling of late.

In the five matches since – he was sidelined from the Sydney Test against India with injury – he took 21 wickets with no five-wicket hauls. Johnson’s ability to terrorize the batsmen has apparently faded.

Johnson told ABC: “I’m not someone who makes excuses, but we went through a bit of a time just before that with Phillip Hughes and that was something very difficult, and it was really hard to sort of deal with it at times,” “We were definitely underprepared at that time and my pace was definitely off. “I probably wasn’t fully right, fully mentally right, there at that time, so I just got through.”

Johnson also added, “Every game that I’ve been playing I’m sort of taking it as though it is my last game, and just going out there and enjoying it. “I don’t think I have anything to prove, and if I put that pressure on myself it is not going to work in my favour.”

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