'It was never really a worry or a focus' - Mitchell Starc on his Test cricket future post Ashes

The just-concluded Test series against Pakistan threw many positives for Australia. After gaining two comprehensive innings victories and 120 ICC Test championship points following their systematic annihilation of Pakistan, the former World champions would be delighted by the resurgence of opener David Warner, continued progress of Marnus Labuschagne as a Test match No.3 batsman, but most importantly the revival of Mitchell Starc- the red ball bowler.

The left-arm quick, Starc, hadn’t had a great year of red-ball cricket leading into the Pakistan series and was consigned to the bench for a major part of the Ashes series. But, Starc showed his class against Pakistan as he finished as the leading wicket-taker (14 wickets at 17) which also included a six-for with the Pink ball in the first innings at the Adelaide Oval. While fans and critics talked about Starc’s future in red-ball cricket, it was never really a worry for the 54-Test veteran.

“Playing a bit of Shield cricket and the T20s [before the Pakistan series] was the focus to begin with, and [then to] see how the Shield games played out and if I was selected in the Test squad, then go from there. It was never really a worry or a focus. I was just looking forward to playing some games for New South Wales and playing some white-ball cricket.” Starc said as quoted by Sportstar.

Mitchell Starc holds the record for most wickets with the pink ball

He may have had his problems with the red ball, but with the pink cherry, Starc is an absolute beast. And, he proved that at the Adelaide Oval where he took his overall tally 33 wickets in Day-Night fixtures- a world record.

“I still think it’s more like a white ball than a red ball, so that’s probably playing in my favour there. It still went soft for us on that wicket, as we saw through the early afternoon session to, where it didn’t move around much at all and the wicket,ket was quite flat. When it’s going through those stages, it’s trying to control the scoreboard. We did that fairly well at times and then Yasir got away from us a fair bit.” added Starc.