Mitchell Johnson

An express bowler whose career consisted of Himalayan peaks and oceanic troughs, Mitchell Johnson at his best was as fearsome as fast bowlers come, producing late swing at fierce pace and awkward angles for batters to negotiate. His indubitable peak came near the end of his career, in 2013-14, when in successive series he cowed England and South Africa with his speed and aggression. In those eight Tests he collected 59 wickets at 15.23 and dinged helmets and gloves aplenty.

At 32 then, he was finally achieving the sorts of feats that Dennis Lillee might have expected when he first spotted Johnson's talent as a 17-year-old. His first sport was tennis and after he switched focus to cricket, he suffered early in his career with four back stress fractures that almost floored him for good. He persevered, driving a plumbing van when he lost his Queensland contract, and made his Test debut in 2007 after the retirement of Glenn McGrath.

A clean striker with the bat, he scored a Test century in South Africa in 2009, but never quite reached the genuine all-round status that once seemed possible.

With the ball in hand, he served notice early, taking nine wickets in a player-of-the match performance in the Brisbane Test against New Zealand in 2008, his second home season. There were brutal spells against South Africa in 2008-09 (33 wickets in six Tests, home and away), against whom he did not ever take fewer than five wickets a Test in his 12 matches. But the 2009 Ashes were a relative low - he took a decent number of wickets but went at over four runs per over - and the 2010-11 series was more of the same.

A broken toe in 2011 gave him time away from the game and the chance to reflect on where he was going, but it was still far from smooth sailing. Until the monstrous return for the 2013 Ashes, when, sporting a '70s moustache, he delivered a series of blood-and-thunder spells that would not have been out of place in the Lillee-Thomson era. Johnson intimidated with his bouncer and had England's batters on the hop. He took six or more wickets in each of those Tests, presiding over a 5-0 mauling of the old enemy.

A 12-wicket Test in Centurion in Australia's next series showed that it was no fluke. After that tour of South Africa, Johnson's pace eased off, but he remained a strike weapon and became the fifth Australian bowler to take 300 wickets in Tests.

He had a late flourish in T20, after playing his last internationals. In the IPL, he won two titles with the powerhouse Mumbai Indians side of the 2010s, taking 24 wickets in their 2013 winning campaign. He only played his first BBL in 2016-17, but won the title that season with Perth Scorchers.