The Ashes 2015: Mitchell Starc’s toil with pink ball, not Shane Warne, turned his career around

MITCHELL Starc’s bowling mentor Geoff Lawson adamant it wasn’t Warnie, but slogging through day-night cricket that was the catalyst for his recent form.

Australia's Mitchell Starc catches the ball during the a nets session at The Spitfire Ground, in Canterbury, England Wednesday June 24, 2015. Australia will play England in the first Test of the Ashes series starting July 8. (Adam Davy PA via AP) UNITED KINGDOM OUT NO SALES NO ARCHIVE

It’s hard to think of two bigger cricketing sprays in recent times than Shane Warne’s lashing of Mitchell Starc, and Mitchell Starc’s lashing of pink ball Test matches.

Warne labelled Starc’s body language as “soft” during the Gabba Test match last year and the criticism has been widely highlighted as the turning point in the left-arm destroyer’s meteoric rise.

CLARKE AND STARC FIRE WITH ASHES IMMINENT

CAN AUSSIE BOWLERS CONQUER ENGLISH CONDITIONS

However, the 24-year-old’s bowling mentor Geoff Lawson is adamant it wasn’t Warnie, but what has since been revealed as another thorn in Starc’s side — day-night cricket — that has proven the catalyst for Australia’s Ashes weapon becoming a consistent force.

Starc has been in and out of the Test side until his most recent spell with Australia.

Lawson labelled Warne’s comments as “window dressing” and said the nuts and bolts of the NSW star coming of age can in fact be traced back to the rhythm he found in last summer’s pink ball Sheffield Shield match in Adelaide, ironically a trial for the Day-Night Test denounced so emphatically by Starc last week.

Starc might hate the pink ball with a passion, but somehow his efforts to get everything he could out of that rock he is so suspicious of, could have Australia set to break a 14-year Ashes drought on English soil.

“His red ball stuff had been sometimes good, sometimes not so good and he’d been dropped numerous times from the Test side,” said former Test great and NSW bowling coach, Lawson.

“But from that Shield game, his red ball stuff has been outstanding and he just hasn’t bowled a bad spell.

“He didn’t get all the wickets (four in the first innings, three in the second) but he bowled fast and he bowled well with the new and the old ball.

“He’s moved on from bowling some good balls and bad balls in an over.

“Warnie’s stuff, it’s not even in the equation. It’s window dressing.

“It doesn’t matter what his body language is, he’s got to bowl well and it’s what Starcy’s done.

“Starcy is a different package than Mitchell Johnson … but ultimately you’ve just got to get people out and he’s getting people out.

“He’s gone to another level in consistency and hostility.

Shane Warne’s criticism of Starc was ‘window dressing’, according to Geoff Lawson.

“To me, really that Shield game in Adelaide, on a pretty good wicket batting wicket, he bowled some absolutely quality stuff.”

In Australia’s pre-Ashes tour match, Starc decimated Essex with figures of 6-51 in an ominous sign of what might be to come for England.

Starc’s last tour to the UK was a forgettable one and his waywardness saw him dropped for the second and the fourth Tests to continue his pattern of being a yo-yo in the Australian team.

But Starc says he’s learnt from the experience and identifies the Sydney Test against India in January, where he filled a void left by Johnson, as his own personal coming of age.

“It probably wasn’t until then where things changed mentally for me with the red ball,” said Starc.

“Having that confidence with the white ball (in the World Cup) really helped me. I’ve pushed on I guess the past three months through the IPL and the West Indies to just have that confidence and understanding of my game.

“Consistency for me was something I got asked a lot leading up to that (2013 Ashes) and afterwards.

“The last six months I’ve not nailed it, but worked a lot on it and found that consistency I’ve been working at for a long time.

“In a headspace sense and the way my game has changed I’m in a much better position than back then — I think we all are as a team.”

Originally published as The Ashes 2015: Mitchell Starc’s toil with pink ball, not Shane Warne, turned his career around