When he broke England’s opening partnership on Thursday, Mitchell Johnson obtained his 100th Test wicket, having needed just a year and 250 days to achieve the milestone. Only one man, Kapil Dev, has done it more expeditiously.

Cricket teams have made a mardi gras out of celebrations for less, but it wasn’t just the scoreline of 196 for one that made this look more like the result of a morale-boosting whiparound for flowers and a get-well card. It was the protectiveness that a close-knit group extends to its most vulnerable member, the irony being that for the past year it has been batsmen who have needed protection from Johnson.

Johnson’s lack of penetration on this tour has been only part of the problem. Worse has been his sheer lack of control, the waste of the first new ball here after the waste of the second at Cardiff, where it contributed to Australia’s failure to secure a 1-0 lead — something that was merely aggravating at the time, but that now looms as vital in the context of this series.

A low, round arm looks dramatic when it works, a state of arrested development when it doesn’t. The bat-and-bone-jarring speed and swing that Johnson achieved in South Africa four months ago seem a distant memory.

Disappointed expectations arise also from Johnson’s heritage. The English prefer their Aussie fast bowlers hairy and/or hearty, rather than fit to audition for a boy band and the shy, polite Johnson smiles a little too often and too genuinely to radiate the approved hostility.

Nor does he exude particular confidence: in the early stages of his career, team-mates commented that Johnson was inclined to bowl faster in the nets than in matches, apparently reluctant to let himself go. Even at his quickest now, Johnson’s simulations of menace, the regulation glares and glowerings, look like a fast-bowling mime.

Above all, when Johnson is wayward, as he has been at Lord’s, his body language quickly becomes defensive. He talks to himself; he looks skywards; he pinches the bridge of his nose, like he’s trying to keep something in; he feels responsible. The slope posed difficulties, but there was no doubt to whom Brad Haddin was referring after play on Thursday when he spoke of some Australians “putting too much pressure on ourselves”.

Ricky Ponting captained Johnson sympathetically on Thursday, relieving him for an over after he had conceded four fours in six balls to Andrew Strauss, then bringing him back, rather than leave him to an hour or so’s brooding.

They then stood side-by-side when Johnson returned at the Nursery End, Ponting with a solicitous hand on the small of his bowler’s back, while setting the field.

At each ball landing on line, Ponting and Michael Clarke in the slips applauded above their heads. But there weren’t anywhere near enough reasons to applaud and Johnson fell into the trap of simply “putting the ball there” — well, thereabouts, anyway, because he lost 8-10mph on the speed gun with no improvement in accuracy.

“It just looked like he wasn’t getting in the areas he wanted to,” Strauss said euphemistically. “The right areas”, that jargon du jour, where the individuals dematerialise and biography is reduced to geography. Here it showed its shortcomings: this was all about the man, not the place.

In the circumstances, England’s 425 should have been 550. After Nathan Hauritz’s maiming, Ponting had only three bowlers at his disposal — Ben Hilfenhaus, Peter Siddle and a combination of Johnson, Clarke and Marcus North adding up to a third.

Australia’s captain manipulated them resourcefully. With Siddle described yesterday as “officially unwell”, as though just cast as Jeffrey Bernard, he did even better.

Johnson, however, is becoming Australia’s greatest potential headache, awkward to carry, but just as problematic to exclude. If Brett Lee were to recover in time for the Edgbaston Test that starts a week on Thursday, who would make way?

Johnson’s role could need revising, his promotion to bellwether of Australia’s attack having come so swiftly. Ponting started with his other pacemen yesterday; after a phase in which the captain has come to regard Johnson as his go-to guy, it may be a harbinger.

Johnson, 27, might also be better accepting that, with a slinging action such as his, there will be days he sprays the ball around. It was insouciance almost as much as speed that made Jeff Thomson so formidable: one never knew if an unplayable ball was in the offing, because the fast bowler hardly knew. And for all his travails these past two days, Johnson has produced the ball of the match, veering through Matt Prior’s defences late on Thursday with unheralded reverse-swing.

He has taken eight wickets at 32.9 this series; similar figures by Stuart Broad would have been welcomed as confirming his maturation into a top-class Test all-rounder.

Finally, Johnson seems to have come to need the validation of swing; having abruptly started bringing the ball back into right-handers in South Africa, he has grown discouraged by the absence of the effect here and at the SWALEC Stadium. He should get over it. Consistent swing, of course, is a worthy aim, but better intermittent swing than predictable swing, especially at 90mph. The best advice would probably be the simplest: bowl fast, bowl full and let the batsmen do the thinking.

For an attack with so little experience of English conditions Australia’s has so far punched above its weight. But raw-boned Hilfenhaus and rubicund Siddle, however willing, won’t answer all Ponting’s needs. Even if Johnson does not recover his best form, he has a contribution to make in spreading the work and wear. It takes a full XI, moreover, properly to celebrate cricket success.