With the retirement if Mitchell Johnson, the game of cricket has lost another one of its truly fast bowlers.

You can wax lyrical all you like about the metronomic precision of McGrath, the craft of Anderson, the guile of Warne, or the shear weirdness of Murali. But, for true drama and excitement, you need a fast bowler on a decent pitch tearing in off his long run with the full umbrella cordon and the courageous batsman doing everything he can to survive, both literally and figuratively. Think Holding against Boycott; Donald against Atherton. Hostile, brutal, breath-taking stuff.

Johnson was perhaps more mercurial than most of the greats of the game. I saw him at Cardiff in the first Ashes test of 2009. He took a few wickets, but he was all over the place and failed to break the final wicket stand between Panesar and Anderson. The crowd cheerfully chanted the Mitchell Johnson song to the tune of that Stealer’s Wheel number. Four years later, though he was devastating. He had found a way to make that seemingly fragile, slingy action repeatable and was, for a while, the best bowler in the world.

I’ve been lucky enough to see quite a few of the great fast bowlers in action, but I do worry about them being eliminated from the game. There are several reasons for this.

• There is less of an obvious role for an out-and-out quick in coloured clothing cricket. They cannot be guaranteed to be economical. The really thrilling attacking fields have no place in a game where runs, not wickets matter. Stupid, batsman-favouring rules prevent the use of proper short balls as a weapon.

• Modern pitches are becoming dull and lifeless. Remember Sabina Park in the 80s. You could see your reflection on it. Pitches in the West Indies are now more like a long jumper’s sandpit. No wonder they don’t produce great bowlers any more. Who would want to bowl quickly on a beach?

• India is having a huge influence on the game of cricket. They are the economic powerhouse of the modern game and they care only for batsmen. Who are the great heroes of India? Sachin, Laxman, Dravid, Dhoni, Gavaskar. Kumble and Bedi might get a look in if not for the obsession with the short form of the game but a pace bowler… Kapil? Great player, but hardly a hell-raiser.

• Domestic cricket no longer attracts the pace bowler as it once did. And, when a great player does come to play county cricket, it’s no longer even for a whole season. Players used to be associated with Counties in England for much of their career. Wasim at Lancashire, Marshall at Hampshire, Walsh at Gloucestershire, Donald at Warwickshire. Fans took these players to their hearts and County cricket mattered, because you were watching world class performers. The reduction in overseas pros to just one per county put a greater emphasis on batsmen and all-rounders – they were more use in the lucrative one day games.

Enlarging on this last point for a while, by way of self-indulgence, the fastest bowling I have ever seen in the flesh was by a young Allan Donald. As a student in Birmingham, I saw a lot of Warwickshire in the late 80s. South Africa was still in the wilderness and we fondly hoped that England would be able to persuade Donald to play for them. No such luck. I have misty memories of sitting side-on at Edgbaston for one of Donald’s spells. I think it was against Lancashire. Little Keith Piper was standing miles back, with the slips even deeper. It’s the quickest spell I’ve ever seen and I did see Shoaib in his pomp and he was not slow.

On the international scene, I missed the very best of the West Indies quicks by a few years. I saw lots of Ambrose and Walsh live, but never saw Holding, Marshall, Roberts or Garner. I did see Wasim and Waqar bowling in tandem and I don’t think I have ever seen a better pair working together. They were devastating. I missed Lilley and Thompson, but I did see lots of Brett Lee, Shaun Tait and the Mitchells.

So, what can be done to get more fast bowlers onto the scene? As with spin bowlers, English conditions do not favour the real pace men. Seam and swing bowling dominate. We have never had the conveyor belt of great quicks like the West Indies, Pakistan, South Africa and Australia. This need not be the case – many of the examples above really prospered in England, but the relentless treadmill of English cricket takes its toll. Allow more overseas players? I would. We do not need a long procession of mediocre English and Kolpak players. Let’s get the world class players back into the game.

And on the global scene, we must reverse the decline of Test Match cricket. Alright, I’m going to nail my colours (perhaps that should be whites) to the mast and call a spade a spade. First Class Cricket is real cricket. The rest with white balls and coloured clothing is for the kids. It’s a pretty spectacle, but it’s not the real game – like comparing Chateaunuf du Pape with Ribena. How do we reverse this decline? I wish I knew, but all of the following would help:

• Improve the over rate. Really. Don’t just talk about it. Actually do it. Harsh in-game penalties for slow over rates would do it, along with long bans for regular or cynical transgressions.
• Get rid of bad light.
• All series should be a minimum of 3 matches.
• A meaningful world championship well financed.
• Some coverage on free-to-air TV.

There you go. Piece of piss!