It was only five overs, split over two short spells, but Mitchell Starc‘s first bowl in the middle in three months was enough to get the Australia camp very excited at the prospect of him finding the form that had made him the Player of the Tournament at the 2015 World Cup.
Starc, who had been sidelined since the end of the Sri Lanka Test series in early February with a pectoral muscle injury, claimed 2 for 14 from five rapid overs against the New Zealand XI in the second of the three practice matches at Allan Border Field. He burst through Hamish Rutherford in the opening over to send him back for a first-ball duck, then speared a toe-crushing yorker past a well-set George Worker at the start of his second spell.
Starc decamped to the sidelines shortly after, and the difference in the attack was palpable as the New Zealand batsmen made merry against Kane Richardson, Sean Abbott and Michael Neser. The Australians have brought their own speed guns with them to these matches and Starc was pushing the needle up to leave his team-mates in the shade.
“I was sitting near the speed gun and it was pretty quick – 148kph one of them – and the rest of us were about 135, so I was asking Dene Hills [one of the team performance analysts] to push it up for us,” Richardson said, on the day he was added to the World Cup squad as a replacement for Jhye Richardson. “And they only lost three wickets, two of them to him. It was pretty exciting to see him back hitting the stumps.
“It was a trump card to have at that last World Cup, sitting back and watching that was pretty amazing, so if we can get Mitch back to that sort of form – and that looked like it, to be honest – if he’s swinging the ball at pace, he’ll take wickets and make everyone’s job easier.”
New Zealand batsman Will Young, who has scored 190 runs across the first two matches in Brisbane, spoke with wide eyes about facing Starc. “It did feel that quick, I left one off a length at it just kept rising and I was like, ‘Woah, that’s steep’ and then it went for four byes over the keeper,” he said.
Starc was under pressure for large stretches of the 2018-19 season as Test success became hard to come by, before he finished in style with a ten-wicket haul against Sri Lanka in Canberra. There is a limited sample size on which to judge his recent one-day returns because since the 2017 Champions Trophy, due to a mixture of injury and resting, he has only played seven ODIs, taking 11 wickets at 37.36 with an economy of over a run-a-ball.
With Jhye Richardson now having joined Josh Hazlewood on the list of bowlers missing the World Cup, the onus will be on Starc and Pat Cummins to propel Australia’s pace attack. Kane Richardson will be part of the support cast that is hoping to follow in their slip stream.
“Having guys like that around and following them my role will be completely different because they are a different breed of bowler,” Richardson said. “That’s the beauty of our attack, having blokes who can play different roles. It would be nice if I play and I come on with them 4 for 20 after Mitch and Pat are done, but if we can get them firing it makes everyone’s job, including mine, much easier.”
Source: ESPN Crickinfo