Shorn of a trio of injured frontline seamers, there were question marks over whether one of cricket’s traditional tournament heavyweights would carry sufficient punch in the bowling department.
Replacing Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood – who boast a combined 308 ODI appearances and 525 wickets – appears on paper no easy feat for Australia.
Nathan Ellis, Johnson and Dwarshuis had a collective 17 ODI caps before this match, but despite not being household names they are grizzled operators.
Dwarshuis and Ellis are both 30, Johnson is 29, and all three showed short-format skills and nous garnered from the domestic franchise circuit.
On the back of scores of 351, 356, 325 and 317 at the Gaddafi Stadium in the Champions Trophy so far, none of them looked remotely flustered when Afghanistan sailed to 91-2.
Johnson’s menace at the start saw him remove the dangerous Rahmanullah Gurbaz for a duck with a toe-crushing yorker before he later snared Sediqullah.
Dwarshuis, meanwhile, held his nerve well at the death as his excellent line drew false shots.
It’s not that long ago that Johnson, who holds an Italian passport through his grandfather, was set to throw his lot into Italy’s bid to make a T20 World Cup while Dwarshuis was investigating his eligibility to represent the Netherlands.
Both of them – along with Ellis – now look to have a major role in Australia’s attempts to win a hat-trick of Champions Trophy titles and their first since 2009.
