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10. Neil Johnson, 107 v Pakistan, Peshawar, 1998-99
A surprising entry at No. 10, but a very well deserved one.

Pakistan scored 296 and Zimbabwe were struggling at 63 for 4 when Johnson walked in. For the next four hours, he toyed with one of the greatest bowling quartets that took the field, and scored 107 (in 117 balls) in Zimbabwe's total of 155. The unheralded Zimbabwe bowlers then dismissed the strong Pakistan batting line-up for 103 and helped achieve their greatest Test victory.

Pakistan's bowlers were Waqar Younis, Wasim Akram, Aaqib Javed and Mushtaq Ahmed. The PQI was 37.6 - indicating a pitch difficult to bat on. Johnson scored over 110 priceless runs with the late-order batsmen. The next best score was 29. And this was a tough away win against a strong team.

Yeah, a great knock. Sadly a short stay in the team.

Yeah he was some player, wasn’t he.
Damned good bowler as well. I recall there being an issue because he didn’t want to bowl and wanted to focus on batting and I believe there were a few problems. That was a good team, we were always the underdogs but everyone watched because we were capable of beating anyone on a good day.

How fast was Johnson? Early 80's? And was he Zimbabwean or South African?

He was a right handed bowler and left handed batsman, which is unusual. Ya I guess 80ish.
He played mostly for Natal I think, and also County. He was great to watch, really attacking batsman.
Born here but grew up in SA.

Neil Johnson's threatening factor was swing & seam. He wasn't express like Olonga or Brandes, but had the quality of moving the bowl both ways as a result he was used to open with the bowl in many occassion, with Streak, Olonga became first change bowler.

As a batsman he had the class of facing new ball could have been now ranked with Kallis, Cairns, Flintoff, Watson's category if he had continued to play the game for Zimbabwe.

The other incredible innings Johnson scored that sticks in the mind is this century at Lords. Against an attack led by McGrath and Warne.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/8039 ... d-cup-1999