pulakesh mukhopadhyay
After Brisbane, it can be said without any doubt whatsoever: the Hollywood big man whose sales strategy was predicated on a start with a spectacular earthquake , followed by similar, subsequent episodes building up to a mind-numbing climax knew what he had been talking about.
And who says they don’t make ’em like that  any more? We have just had a roaring tsunami roll ashore.
The air has been so thick with belligerent rhetoric – it sells very well and you mustn’t forget television picked up sounds between deliveries in violation of the relevant contractual terms – that we have simply bypassed what Mitchell Johnson said when he heard of Jonathan Trott’s stress-related illness, which had resulted in the England batsman going home. Pacifism isn’t the priority of anyone who is anyone down under. Not as of now.
Johnson, cast as one of the villainous characters in the current conflict, knew what Trott was passing through, though: the Australian fire-breathing speedster had earlier in his career fought his own mental demons. Having hit a form slump while playing in Sri Lanka and South Africa in 2011, he later revealed he had been  mentally exhausted, and only a toe injury that forced him out of the game for six months was said to have saved him from contemplating retirement.
“I really just wanted to get way from the game and step back,” he said at the time. Johnson it was who twice captured Trott’s wicket rather cheaply in the first Test.
“It was a real shock for me,” Johnson told reporters of his English rival’s departure, adding: “It can be tough at times when it’s not going so well. You start to think about every little thing that’s going on in your life when you should be focusing on one thing. It seems maybe he’s thinking that way at the moment, and just needs to just get away from the game.  For me, when I had my toe injury, it was great to get away to freshen up mentally. I just wish Trott the best. Hopefully he can come back later on the tour or in the future, because he’s a great player for England and he’s done exceptionally well.” Few takers for these outpourings, though.
And superimposed on this civilised expression of fellow-feeling is the bitter, rancorous and damaging verbal give-and-take that is the flavour of the season.
If we are loving it, we are losing sight also of something else. Colin Povey, chief executive of Warwickshire, Trott’s county side, has said: "When you look at the international schedule it’s pretty relentless and it takes its toll."
And the more individuals – Trott, Marcus Threscothick and the whole lot that is believed to have keeled over in trying circumstances – are probed in slanted analyses, the less is the chance that we will ever get to know the effects of the ceaseless run of the commercial juggernaut of the game. Focus on the individual, bung in suggestions that there are wimps among us, and the bigger, more sordid side of the thing stays safely under wraps. 
The putative poor sap who has allegedly wilted is expendable; the system, laying the golden eggs, is inviolate.