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Bolt-from-the-blue speedster Spencer Johnson on Tuesday night made the transition from landscape gardener to overnight IPL millionaire but has no intentions to become a full-time Twenty20 gun for hire.

As Pat Cummins ($3.67 million) and Mitchell Starc ($4.43 million) reaped eye-boggling sums in the Indian Premier League player auction, it was another express-paced bowler whose life has been suddenly changed by the riches on offer on the T20 circuit.

Spencer Johnson was bought for $1.78 million in the IPL player auction.Credit: Getty Images

Johnson’s $1.78 million payday highlights the challenges facing national boards around the world in an age when players can earn significantly more money for two months of work with a franchise than playing year-round for their country.

A 28-year-old who has been plagued by injury, Johnson now has a lucrative security net should his body prevent him from realising his considerable potential in the longer formats of the game.

Spencer Johnson, considered a successor to Mitchell Starc, was bought for $1.78 million in the IPL player auction.Credit: Getty Images

He finds himself in the peculiar position of being both a newcomer to professional cricket yet already on the fringes of the national side.

Thankfully for Australian cricket, the left-armer, who has emerged as a candidate to succeed Starc, remains devoted to realising his baggy green dream.

“I want to play Shield cricket, [and] I want to play more for Australia,” Johnson said. “Hopefully with performances in Shield cricket [it] can warrant some more for Australia.”

Johnson made the comments just hours before the Gujarat Titans and the Ricky Ponting-coached Delhi Capitals locked horns in a bidding war for his services, and is a view unlikely to have been changed just yet by the financial windfall.

Spencer Johnson strikes in English white-ball tournament, The Hundred.Credit: The Hundred

The past 18 months have been a whirlwind for Johnson, who midway through last year did not have a state contract with South Australia or a BBL deal with the Brisbane Heat.

“I was working as a landscaper, greenkeeper,” Johnson said. “Fast forward 18 months, it’s definitely a different situation.”

Instead of planting trees, the 194-centimetre speedster now sows seeds of doubt in the minds of opposition batters with his 150 km/h thunderbolts.

Though he debuted at state level in 2017, Johnson was largely an unknown outside of state cricket circles when he announced himself as a fast bowler of note for the Heat in last season’s Big Bash League.

Signed soon after to play in The Hundred, Johnson also caught the eye of national selectors, who blooded him in August in the lead-up to the World Cup.

Johnson is more recognised for his deeds in the limited-overs arena, but his goal is to play Test cricket if that 194cm frame of his stays together. A serious ankle injury almost finished his career at the age of 21, but more recently it’s been a hamstring issue that has kept him from the field.

“Ideally, I’d like to play more red ball,” Johnson said. “My body’s letting me down the last few years but my body’s hardening and I’m getting ready to play, hopefully, some longer-form cricket, which for me is my better format.

“It’s just been for whatever reason I’ve had an opportunity in Big Bash and it’s gone quite well. Post-Big Bash, I’ll get back to South Australia and play the last four Shield games, and with a couple of performances you never know what might happen.”

Johnson was a beneficiary of a player market where express-paced fast bowlers commanded exorbitant sums. West Australian Jhye Richardson, who last played for Australia 18 months ago, was bought for $892,000 by the Capitals.

None, though, benefited more than the Kolkata Knight Riders-bound Starc, who broke the 16-year tournament’s record fee set not even an hour earlier by Cummins.

Starc has given up millions to focus on Test cricket and spending time with his wife, new Australian women’s captain Alyssa Healy, but he now gets the opportunity to cash-in on being one of his generation’s premier white-ball bowlers. Starc said he was stunned as his price went skyrocketing.

“I got going through the nervous part about whether I’d get a bid or not, to then going ‘holy crap!’,” Starc told the Willow Talk Cricket Podcast.

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