At the end of the Gabba Test, versus India, in 2021, it seemed as if Mitchell Starc was going through a rather difficult phase in the longest format. He had averaged over 40 in that Border-Gavaskar Trophy, and a young Shubman Gill smashed the left-arm pacer to all corners of the ground in Brisbane. The veteran pacer looked bereft of ideas as he kept trying to bounce out the promising opener, with Australia hurtling to a shocking defeat against an understrength Indian team. At that juncture, Starc’s detractors had pointed out that the left-arm bowler needs to upskill his game.
Some five years later, Starc hasn’t just added 178 Test wickets to his wicket tally at an average of 25, but he has also unearthed new weapons. One of them is the much talked about three-quarter seam ball, which in turn has taken his bowling to an elevated plane. It has helped him to go across the right-hand batter from over the wicket and bring in the unpredictability factor.
Just try to excavate more information over the last three years, and you will observe that the number of wickets he has picked up via inducing edges to the slip cordon has increased by 9-10 per cent. In the past, Starc’s bowling was largely about booming inswingers from over the wicket, blended with yorkers from round the wicket and short deliveries.
For a moment, just transport yourself back to the MCG Test in 2021. Australia didn’t just win it in a canter, but it was also the game where Starc began to employ the 3/4-seam ball on a consistent basis. In the just-concluded Ashes, the aforesaid artillery was one of the foundation stones of his rich haul of 31 wickets.
On Day 4 of the fifth and final SCG Test versus England, something else caught the attention – The average speed of Starc in the series was an astonishing 142 kph. At the age of almost 36, to bowl at such speeds in scorching heat is a testimony to his remarkable fitness and mental strength.
So, by the time Starc hangs up his spiked boots, where will he rank among the pantheon of greats? The pace bowler already has 428 Test scalps, alongside his glittering exploits in white-ball cricket. Perhaps that is a good topic for discussion on another day. Instead of debating where Starc would slot in among the finest, as an aficionado, one would rather sit in front of the TV to savour bravura performances from an ever-evolving pace bowler.
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