Why Mitchell Starc is the rightful new leader of the Australian pace attack
Tuesday saw the culmination of a special career as Mitchell Johnson walked into the sunset, calling quits on an eight-year international career for Australia. It was a career that saw several memorable moments, including two World Cup wins and an Ashes demolition job at home in the 2013-14 season that left England scarred for many a day.
The retirement of Johnson means that Australia enter a new era now in terms of their fast bowling attack, with the likes of Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood forming the pace battery. There's also Peter Siddle, who is likely to feature in the XI in the upcoming matches, while James Pattinson and Pat Cummins wait in the wings.
For any fast bowling attack to succeed in all conditions, it is important that they have variety – that is one of the toughest challenges that any batting line-up can face. And this Australian attack minus Johnson seems like it would have plenty of that.
Starc, with his thunderbolts fired in close to 150 kph almost every ball, sometimes even more, provides the batsmen a fraction of a second less to come in the line of the ball and react to it. As for Hazlewood, ever since he made his debut against India at Brisbane, he has been extremely hard to get away; his consistency on the corridor outside off stump at a good pace has kept one end tight.
Siddle, if picked, would be the workhorse who would bowl all day and provide the much-needed support for the new ball bowlers.
Time for Starc to step up
Every potent fast bowling attack has always had a leader, the one bowler who has tried to be the most threatening of the lot.
In James Anderson, England has an artist who is outstanding with the new ball and equally good with the old. South Africa have been lucky to have someone like a Dale Steyn, who has been magnificent for them over his decade-long career. India had Zaheer Khan, who over the years cut down his pace and instead depended on his skill and intelligence to knock over the best.
Similar to them, this new look Australian bowling attack also needs someone who will lead the pack, and the most lethal of the current lot is certainly Starc. The 25-year-old has been a different beast altogether ever since Shane Warne’s ‘soft’ comments about him.
At the World Cup earlier this year, Starc picked up 22 wickets in 8 matches at an average of 10.18 that included a staggering spell of 6 for 28 at Auckland which broke the back of the New Zealand batting order and almost gave his side the win.
He backed that performance up with an equally impressive showing at the Ashes in England, where in the five Tests he took 18 wickets at 30.85, second only to Stuart Broad.
Starc came into this ongoing Australian summer in red-hot form, having taken 26 wickets in 6 ODI matches for New South Wales in the domestic competition. He had also left South Australia in tatters after taking four wickets for four runs in a four-day match at the Adelaide Oval.
The signs are all in place
He arrived in Brisbane to face New Zealand and made an immediate impact on a good batting surface, picking 4 for 57 in the first innings to bowl the Black Caps out for 317.
But a more memorable spell came in the last Test at Perth, when in the first innings he kept bowling over 140 kph ball after ball, relentlessly trying to extract life out of a placid pitch. He even touched 160.4 kph, and that ball got everybody buzzing.
Starc showed shades of being a leader at this year’s Indian Premier League, when he was part of the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) attack that had the likes of Sreenath Aravind and Harshal Patel. He was instrumental in curtailing the scoring, especially at the back end of the innings, an area where the RCB have struggled on quite a few occasions.
One of the things that make Starc a standout among the current crop of Australian bowlers is the fact that he has been a capable performer across all the three formats for his country. Then there is also the fact that he has remained injury free for a long duration and hasn't broken down in the middle of a spell despite bowling at such outrageous speeds.
Another thing to take into consideration is that with his impressive performances, Starc has gained the confidence of the team management. Everyone now believes that he can become the main man of the bowling arsenal, which was further confirmed when bowling coach Craig McDermott said that he and the rest of the world saw a shift in leadership while watching the action from the dressing room at Perth.
Australia are entering into a very interesting phase of their overall cricket now. In the space of three months, the core that took them to many a memorable triumph, both in batting and bowling, are gone. And just the way Steve Smith and David Warner have the responsibility of carrying the fortunes with the willow in hand, it is Starc who has to do the same thing with the red sphere.