Follow UsDespite going for over INR 24 crore at the 2024 IPL Auction, the 33-year-old Australian Mitchell Starc has placed his firm focus on the longest format of the sport. Starc has often in the past been viewed as someone who is an excellent bowler in the white-ball format but not quite on the same par in the red-ball formats.
However, over the last year, the left-arm pacer has shown a firm interest in improving his game with the red-ball. Not just that, Starc opened up on why he registered himself at the 2024 IPL, stating that it will act as a build-up for the T20 World Cup that follows the franchise competition in the Caribbean and the United States of America.
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"Red ball is still top of the tree for me," Starc said on Sunday ahead of the second Test in Melbourne.
"I think my body will let me know about Test cricket before probably I want to [stop]. It's an opportunity next year, in terms of the [Australian] winter, it's a lot quieter. There's no Test match between the one in New Zealand in March and the summer next year. Obviously there's a T20 World Cup. It's a nice lead into that with the IPL and the quality of cricket that that tournament presents."
Unlike the Ashes, where there wasn’t too much turnaround time between two Tests, the red-ball series against Pakistan is well-placed in terms of the bowlers getting a break. Looking back at the Test year, where Starc has been involved in eight Tests across three continents, the left-arm stated that there were a number of things to manage.
"There were a number of things to manage all that," Starc said. "Preparation [being] one, I think I'd tweaked a few things just to manage some pain, but I came out of the back end of the World Cup in a better place than I started and was able to manage that well, obviously with the medicos as well. I sort of tailored my prep or my training. I'm probably doing less than I probably would have wanted to."
Across 83 Tests, Starc has picked up 338 wickets and is statistically one of the best pacers in the country, but that hasn’t stopped the left-arm pacer from constantly evolving his own game. He wasn’t at his best in the first innings of the Perth Test against Pakistan, but then, just like a flick of a switch, Starc had turned his game around.
"I'm certainly in a place where I've played enough cricket to problem solve on my own or be quicker than my younger self. So, whilst I was up and going I just felt like I wanted to do it then rather than sleep on it or try and get up and bowl in the morning whilst we were batting. It only took a dozen balls to work it out and it was much better for the second innings.
"I thought my front side wasn't working the way it should, but it was actually my arm path in my bowling arm."