'Imperfect' Johnson rips Proteas to pieces

Mitchell Johnson arrived on a hat trick here yesterday and left with a dazzling dozen wickets to bowl Australia to an emphatic victory in the first test.

Johnson, who snuffed out SA's first innings with consecutive deliveries to complete a haul of 7/68, did not complete his hat trick. But he took 5/59 yesterday to become the seventh Australian to reach 250 test wickets. His match analysis of 12/127 is his career-best performance.

"I don't think you ever play a perfect game," Johnson said. Really? As Graeme Smith said recently, "Bull-dot-dot-dot."

All that stood between SA and an even bigger hiding than the 281-run thrashing they endured was AB de Villiers, who along with Hashim Amla was the only batsman Johnson failed to freeze in the headlights.

De Villiers was in the trenches for more than two-and-a-half hours for his 48. That stout effort was not nearly enough to stop SA from being dismissed for 200 and defeated an hour before the scheduled close on the fourth day.

"We never hit our straps; we were outplayed in all departments," Smith said. "We had injuries (to Morne Morkel) and (Dale Steyn's) illness and we were never settled. We allowed Australia to play cricket on the front foot."

Smith said Johnson was "the difference in the game - he's hot, and we need to find a way to put him under pressure".

Johnson added Richie Benaud to the list of seven he has surpassed on the list of Australia's highest wicket-takers in his last 10 tests. Among the others are names that, like Benaud's, are gilt-edged in history - Jeff Thomson, Clarrie Grimmett and Ray Lindwall. And Johnson has played six fewer tests than Benaud and four fewer than Lindwall.

Jason Gillespie's total of 259 is now just five wickets away. Then there will be only five Aussies ahead of Johnson. Not that he has much hope of topping Shane Warne's 708. Surely not.

Johnson has taken 64 wickets at an average of 16.23 in those 10 tests, a golden run that began against SA in Perth in November, 2012, when he claimed 6/164 in a losing cause. He has gone from maddeningly mercurial to magnificently malevolent to the most feared bowler in the world.

SA had nowhere to run nor hide from that truth. Johnson, a perfectly primed incendiary creature only just in control of the havoc he wreaks, was at their throats from the outset.

A lethal threat from his piercing dark eyes to his poison-tipped moustache to his gnarly-edged tattoos to, of course, his nuclear-powered left-arm, Johnson felled and bloodied Ryan McLaren with a blow behind the ear, reduced Robin Peterson to repeated frantic backpedalling towards square leg, and had Vernon Philander wringing his bowling hand in pain.

The last rites in a match SA got wrong from the moment Graeme Smith chose to field on Wednesday began to be said after Australia declared having faced 20 balls and added 12 runs to their overnight total.

Amla speared Johnson through the covers and past point with peppermint crisp drives for four in the eighth over. By then the demon bowler had removed Smith and Alviro Petersen.

Smith had middled a delivery on his legs and was the victim of a superb catch by Alex Doolan, who stayed down and scooped the ball low. Amla went the same way, this time with a juggle thrown in for fun.

Fun? Maybe not.