THE SCENES when the Grace Gates opened shortly before 9 o’clock were not quite in keeping with the popular image of MCC members, who are generally perceived to require about half an hour to make the journey from leather upholstered armchair to pavilion bar, and the same time back again to resume their conversation about the day’s breaking news, such as Fred Perry winning Wimbledon and the Relief of Mafeking.

Not yesterday, though. One of the npower girls was knocked over in the rush for seats, and an elderly man wearing an egg and bacon boater, notwithstanding the fact that he had to weave in and out of the human traffic, would have made it to his seat comfortably ahead of Usain Bolt.

It’s a wonder there wasn’t an arrest out there, cardiac or otherwise.

It is, however, fair to speculate that the pandemonium was even greater in the England dressing room in the clamour for their batsmen to get out and face Australia’s leading strike bowler, whose performances throughout this series suggest that the England and Wales Cricket Board has discovered that the bloke who was putting the wind up the South Africans earlier this year has an English doppelganger who can’t bowl at all, and the original is being held captive until the end of the series in a secret underground St John’s Wood dungeon.

It’s hard to explain quite what has happened to Mitchell Johnson, inset, but every time Ricky Ponting hands him a new ball, he must feel like an antique collector entrusting a Ming vase to someone with a bad case of the DTs.

It may be a little unfair to bring up an old Australian ditty from the days of Lillee and Thomson, but it’s probably safe to say that Ponting is not humming himself to sleep with a soothing chorus of “Ashes To Ashes, Dust To Dust, If Johnson Doesn’t Get You, Hilfenhaus Must.”

Hilfenhaus, in fairness, has bowled well in this series, accurate, consistently getting the ball to swing, and is so strong he probably spends his spare time wrestling saltwater crocodiles.

Johnson, though, has totally lost it, with an approach so jerky, he runs in like a man with his braces caught in the sightscreen, and a slingy delivery action that makes him less of a sniper’s rifle in the Australian armoury as a blunderbuss.

One or two reliable judges think he’s close to getting the yips, a condition more closely associated with darts players, whose malaise starts with missing the treble 20, graduates to making holes in the rubber tyre around the board, and ends up with the dart flying into the adjacent snug bar and ending its journey in a gin and tonic. The latter is about where Johnson is currently at.

In cricket, it is an affliction which affects left-handers like Johnson more than right-arm bowlers, although generally spinners more than the quickies. A famous sufferer was Derbyshire’s Fred Swarbrook, back in the 1970s, who finally sought out a psychologist to help effect a cure.

He advised Fred to put a pebble in his pocket and rub it before running in to bowl to calm his nerves. Fred promptly sent one straight up into the air, and the ball landed back on his head, whereupon his captain, Eddie Barlow, who didn’t think much of gurus, loudly put forward an alternative remedy. “Fred,” shouted Barlow, “have you thought about rubbing the ball and bowling the pebble instead?”

Johnson seems far too young to have gone the same way as the Australian golfer Ian Baker-Finch, who finally packed up as a professional after managing to miss the widest fairway in the world at St Andrews so completely that his ball ended up in a hotel car park.

Apparently, he still went out and shot 65s and 66s in friendly games with his chums, so it was widely put down to stage fright.

Whether or not this is Johnson’s problem, it is all to England’s advantage. Their batsmen have seen him struggle, and have gone after him so hard (when they’ve been able to reach the ball) that Johnson’s confidence may be totally shot.

Johnson has been one of the most heavily hyped Ashes debutants for years, and the weight of expectation just may have been too much for him. He’s a nice lad, and no-one would wish him any permanent scarring; so when the end-of-series gongs are being handed out, it would be a nice gesture to give him Fred’s pebble.