Ball of the Ashes: Mitchell Starc fires in an unplayable delivery to castle James Vince

Australia are yet again on top in the ongoing Ashes as England find the host bowlers too hot to handle. Talking about being hot to handle, pacer Mitchell Starc produced one particular delivery that would’ve defeated even the best of the batters in the game. England’s James Vince who was batting on 55 but had no answers to the beauty and stood there in disbelief after being castled.

Starc fired one in at 90mph bowling from round the wicket into the right-hander. The ball moved in with the angle and Vince prepared to flick it on the on-side. But the ball moved away from him after pitching and deviated enough to beat the outside edge of his bat and rather crash into the timber. Vince couldn’t believe the ball actually moved that much and knew he was undone by the sound of the stump crashing down on the ground.

The ball pitched in the short of good length area was in the 6m range away from the stumps and deviated as much as 3.9 degrees from the original trajectory which would’ve taken it down to the leg side and perfectly in the zone of the shot Vince played.

The pacer was thrilled and so were the rest of his teammates. He hadn’t had a success in the innings yet and was bowling with figures of 0/23 before creating this magical moment. It certainly deserves the tag of the ball of the Ashes 2017-18 a series that hasn’t been played on really good bowling surfaces and the life for the batters has been easier.

With this wicket, England were 5 down for 100 while still trailing Australia’s first innings total by 159 runs. Batting first the Brits had posted 403 runs on the board and that was after a collapse having got a much better start.

Australia in their response crushed any hopes the visitors had of making a comeback in the series as skipper Steve Smith churned out a double hundred and stitched a magnificent 301-run partnership with Mitchell Marsh who also played a brilliant knock worth 181 to take a 259-run lead.

Watch the video of the ball of the Ashes 2017-18:

That’s just absurd #Ashes pic.twitter.com/TtkEDPjbJH

— cricket.com.au (@CricketAus) December 17, 2017