Australia v South Africa: Mitchell Starc has rejected IPL riches and chances to rest for honour of representing his country
Mitchell Starc’s streak of 23 straight Tests will end but, writes DANIEL CHERNY, not before he put everything on the line for Australia.
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Even when no one in Australia could watch, Mitchell Starc was playing cricket for his country.
It was August 2021, footy seasons well in swing, the Tokyo Olympics dominating attention, Melbourne and Sydney locked down. The Aussies were playing five Twenty20 internationals in Bangladesh, tacked onto the end of a white-ball stint in the West Indies. It was as off-Broadway as it gets for Australian men’s internationals, played late at night on the Eastern Seaboard and not even picked up by Foxtel.
For the sickos desperate enough to watch the matches, you had to use a VPN or find a dodgy stream. Australia lost the series 4-1, bowled out for 62 in the fifth and final match. The tour would best be remembered for the off-field acrimony that played a key role in sealing Justin Langer’s eventual fate as coach.
Starc didn’t have to be there.
Josh Hazlewood travelled, too, but he was vying to secure his spot in Australia’s T20 squad for the World Cup. Most of Australia’s other three-format players skipped the tour. David Warner, Steve Smith and Pat Cummins gave the tour a wide berth, as did Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Kane Richardson, Jhye Richardson and Daniel Sams, for the most part weighed down by bubble fatigue.
Remember, this was only months after a group of top Aussies had to effectively be rescued from the IPL amid India’s Covid-19 crisis and the Federal government’s decision to shut its borders to India, jettisoning Australian cricket’s biggest names to the Maldives for a couple of weeks in a desperate bid to get home.
Starc never got stuck. For four years in a row he has turned down the promise of millions of dollars by opting out of the IPL auction, where his skills as an express left-arm quick and a genuine great of white-ball cricket would always be in demand.
But Starc has always put Australia first.
About the only match he has ever skipped was the third one-dayer in South Africa in March 2020. His reason for missing that one? To watch Australia’s women – particularly wife Alyssa Healy – play in the Twenty20 World Cup final at the MCG.
Starc is Australia’s multi-format omnipresent. He is Australia’s ironman.
There has been no shortage of sweat, perhaps a few tears across difficult home Test series against India. You can now add blood to that list, shown by the red dotting on his trousers late on day three. Earlier in the day it had been red ink with the bat.
With the Aussies unable to call upon Cameron Green, they badly needed Starc to bowl close enough to his usual allotment or else be forced into relying on part-timers.
A busted digit on his bowling hand? No drama seemingly.
He kept fronting up for over after testing over on a not particularly helpful pitch, removing South African opener Sarel Erwee with a yorker. He bowled 18 overs for the innings, enough to keep Scott Boland and Cummins relatively fresh.
He even threw in a Mankad warning to Theunis de Bruyn for good measure.
“It’s just nice to be able to play a role and contribute in that second innings,” Starc said.
He will consult a finger specialist in Sydney in the coming days to determine the severity of an injury which he hopes won’t keep him out for much, if any, of February’s series against India.
“The tendon’s basically gone from the top of the finger so I can’t straighten it or any of that,” he said.
It was all a mark of the man, but should be no shock. Starc’s willingness and ability to keep putting up his hand – bloodied or otherwise – for his country can be backed up by the number 23.
That is how many Tests in a row he has played. Injury means the streak will end in Sydney, but it is a mighty effort for an express quick.
It pales in comparison to Nathan Lyon’s active streak of 92, or Glenn McGrath’s 54 consecutive Tests played between 1998 and 2002. And Starc’s cause to keep himself fresh was doubtless helped by Australia’s dearth of Test cricket in 2020 and 2021.
Yet in an era where pacemen are readily rotated, Starc’s feat is noteworthy. And soft tissue injuries to Cummins and Hazlewood already this summer underscore the challenge of keeping fast bowlers fit.
The selectors probably would have been better served had they rested Starc against India at Sydney or Brisbane two summers ago, but it is to Starc’s credit that he kept putting himself in a position to get picked, making choices that gave himself the best chance.
The other significance of the number 23 is that it was Shane Warne’s number. In a Test that served as a tribute to Starc’s fiercest critic, the man who had questioned Starc’s body language all those years ago and had regularly been on his case, Starc’s defiance of his body spoke a language of its own.
Perhaps Warney is looking down from above, doffing his wide-brimmed hat.
Originally published as Australia v South Africa: Mitchell Starc has rejected IPL riches and chances to rest for honour of representing his country
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