Though perhaps not yet a great wicket-taker, Mitchell Johnson has certainly proved himself a taker of great wickets.
After last summer getting the better of Rahul Dravid on numerous occasions, today Johnson claimed the wickets of Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly, all genuinely defeated by smart work on a low and not altogether trustworthy pitch.
Johnson's figures of 4-62 were hurt a little towards the end by some treatment from Harbhajan Singh, but he could still be very pleased with a performance of considerable maturity when placed next to those of previous matches.
"I was very nervous yesterday bowling and a little bit this morning, so to get those wickets, those big names it's pretty exciting for me," Johnson said.
"It definitely helps (my) position within the team."
All four wickets were well-planned, but the dismissal of Sachin Tendulkar in particular was the result of a keen eye on the part of the bowler.
Aware of the expectation of the Bangalore crowd that he would push on to get the 77 runs he needed to pass Brian Lara and become Test cricket's greatest run-getter, Tendulkar seemed intent on attack, something Johnson would use to his advantage on a holding surface.
"I felt he was going pretty hard at the ball, the one before we got him out he hit it down to third man so I just felt like I could get him with a slower ball," Johnson said.
"He seemed to be trying to hit through everything so I just tried it."
The result was a catch to debutant Cameron White at cover and further vindication of Johnson's off-season work.
"I've been working on a few little things, my feet position at the crease, last summer I was sort of opening up my front leg and my front arm was going out so I've worked really hard on getting my front arm and front leg going towards off stump so that's helped me a little," he said.
"Also been trying to not put so much presure on myself to bowl the perfect ball every ball, I tend to do that a bit much instead of just going out there and bowling.
"If the ball swings it swings, I get the ball to reverse and I think that's a good thing for me, but I'm not going to focus too much on trying to swing the new ball."
