Mitchell Starc has been tearing into the English batting order in Perth on Day One in the Ashes Test opener, taking four wickets through to lunch, and it may have all been thanks to a flashback West Indies review.
The 35-year-old admitted “something wasn’t quite clicking” for his bowling in Australia’s most recent white-ball series against India, leaving the veteran paceman looking for solutions before the Ashes furnace fired up.
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“It has been a while [since first-class cricket], probably too long if I had my time again,” Starc said.
“That break was a good thing, [so] that’s fine… since then I’ve been working on a few things, getting that rhythm back. I wasn’t going into the ODI series thinking I was cherry ripe… and this weekend was another extension of that.”
The issues he’d been battling proved a tricky nut to crack, and Starc turned to Australian coach Andrew McDonald to see if there were any solutions he hadn’t been spotting. McDonald gave him some tricks – and then Starc decided he would look back into the past to find out what he hadn’t been doing in the Ashes build-up that he was missing.
The answer, he found, was in his record spell against the West Indies at Sabina Park. “I asked for a side-by-side of the spell in Jamaica and the [ODI] spell in Adelaide, just to try and work out what was different,” he recalled, speaking of his claiming the fastest five-wicket haul in Test history.
“I couldn’t quite put my finger on it,” the Aussie quick explained to gathered media. “It’s just getting the engine going again, I guess, getting the miles on the legs and having the engine turned over spell after spell.
“I felt like I was pretty close, and again today I feel like I’m even closer.”
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All that work to solve the issue — which Starc said he wouldn’t specify for media and never did — has clearly paid off, though, with the Aussie spearhead demolishing the English top order on Friday. His lightning start in Perth even saw him grab vital wickets from Joe Root and Ben Stokes, opening 3-17 from six overs to leave England reeling, 3-39 in the first 10 overs.
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Long way to go yet for the Australians, even after Starc started red-hot. At the time of writing, Australia has just claimed Harry Brook’s wicket (Brendan Doggett’s first in Test) with the tourists batting 6-160 mid-arvo in Perth.
Worth noting England chose to bat, though they couldn’t have planned for a Starc masterclass.
