🔗 Share this article

The English team's Mitchell problem spans a considerable period.

This trend commenced with the sheer pace of Mitchell Johnson in 2013-14, and has continued through the skillful left-arm bowling of Starc.

In the seventh Ashes series of his career, Starc has taken 26 crucial wickets - stepping up in the unavailability of pace colleagues often more vaunted.

Another four wickets in the fifth Test in Sydney and his total will be the most successful by any bowler in an Ashes series since Johnson over a decade ago.

The Path to Resilience Led To A Prolific Career of Starc

The peak period for Starc - the 35-year-old has also scored more runs than three of England's specialist batsmen with the bat - is the high point of a Test career established through longevity, wicket-taking skill and a desire to evolve.

Over the past recent period he has overtaken Curtly Ambrose, Harbhajan Singh, Shaun Pollock and, most significantly, Wasim Akram on the list of cricket's greatest bowlers.

By eclipsing Wasim, Starc became the highest wicket-taking left-arm pace bowler in Test history.

And when he plays at his home venue for the Sydney Test this week, it will be the 27th straight Australia Test in a row in which he has featured - a wider run of four Tests missed from the past 56.

The time of a young Starc being told to "harden up" by then Australia coach Tim Nielsen are a distant memory.

"At the time it might have pricked him a little bit and that is likely the role to push athletes and to try and get them to be better than they have been in the past," Nielsen said.

"It was probably one of the conversations you have with a lot of emerging pacemen, especially when they start to break into international cricket.

"There were a couple of times where he said he was a bit injured and might need a rest.

"It wasn't anything more than 'I reckon it's time we have got to find out how much your body can take before it breaks rather than stopping in case it breaks.'"

What Makes Starc So Hard to Face?

Such is the transformation, the national team's coach Andrew McDonald has talked up the prospect of Starc, the oldest of the world-class pace trio, touring England for the 2027 Ashes, by which time he will be 37.

The legendary Ray Lindwall, who played his last match in 1960, was the last Australian quick to wear a Test cap beyond his 37th birthday.

Achieving this would give Starc the chance to emulate James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Glenn McGrath and Courtney Walsh and become only the fifth fast bowler to take 500 Test wickets.

Longevity can get you only part of the way. To reach that milestone, you must be threatening too.

"The strange thing, even though he is exceptional, is that at the top of his mark you can discern what he is planning to bowl," says former England batter Dawid Malan.

"You still have to be able to play it but you can observe when he is holding his wobble seam, detect when he is trying to swing it."

Periodically in Starc's career when he has been faulted for conceding too many runs, something with which he has said he has come to terms.

That negative is far exceeded by his proven capacity to take wickets.

Of the elite bowlers to have taken more than 350 wickets in Tests, only South Africa's Dale Steyn and Pakistan's Waqar Younis have done so with a superior strike rate than that of Starc.

He may leak runs, but the average number of balls he needs to take a wicket is exceptionally low.

"The difficult aspect is I always felt like I was in against him," Malan explained.

"I felt I was picking up the ball easily because he has such a nice action, you can track the delivery and there are excellent batting surfaces in Australia but periodically he'd bowl an unplayable delivery and you would just be heading to the pavilion.

"Between those deliveries, I wouldn't say you relax but you think 'I'm on top here.'

"He might deliver a full toss because he has experimented, bowl a cut ball and then abruptly bowls a ball that starts on middle and hits the off stump.

"He has just always got that match-winning delivery. If you don't respect him each and every delivery he just finds a way of taking your wicket."

A Revival Built On Innovation

Although he no longer bowls at the 99mph heights of his early career these days, Starc's typical speed has remained consistently around 87 miles per hour throughout the most recent phase of his career.

An ability he held from the beginning shows no indication of declining.

"He was tall, very tall, and had exceptional pace through the air which stood out," Nielsen says.

"Additionally, he could swing the ball back into the right-handed batsman."

Moving the ball in the air and targeting the toes, pads or grille was, like other great left-armers before him, Starc's key strategy during the early years of his career.

But, after being omitted during the 2019 Ashes tour, Starc incorporated the wobble seam ball to his armoury by the time he came back to England in 2023.

No bowler in the world has taken as many as Starc's 118 Test wickets since the start of that 2023 tour. Even Indian pace ace Jasprit Bumrah trails by twelve wickets.

The wobble seam has been a primary cause.

"Starc just shows you can teach an old dog new tricks," stated former Australia pace bowler Jason Gillespie.

"He studied a lot of England's veteran seamers and consulted with them about it.

"For a player aged 34 or 35 to continue improving is remarkable."

The wobble seam ball has brought greater uncertainty to Starc's game.

When hurling down the ball with a wobbling seam rather than looking to swing it, some deliveries move off the seam off the surface after pitching. Others will hold its line and find the edge of the bat.

Zak Crawley and Joe Root both were dismissed by Starc wobble seam deliveries in the opening hour of this series.

Starc's number of catches to the slip cordon has increased by almost ten percent in the past three years.

"The crucial element to the wobble seam ball is to have your fingers and wrist right aligned with the ball and let go of the ball off your fingertips," Gillespie said.

"With the wobble seam Mitchell Starc will hold the ball with the seam angled towards the off side.

"If you release it at the correct moment it will wobble down the pitch and that generates uncertainty for the batter.

"He has diligently practicing at developing that because he feels that wobble seam going away brings the slip fielders into play and makes his inswinger to the right-handed batsman more of a surprise."

The English team's struggle by bowlers named Mitchell may persist longer than you think.