Ashes 2019: Mitchell Starc can bring fear factor in 4th Test

Australia’s fastest bowler, on England’s quickest pitch. It’s time to finally unleash the one bowler who can match Jofra Archer’s pure menace.

Mitchell Starc bowls in the nets at Old Trafford. Picture: Ryan Pierse

During England’s World Cup group-stage match against Australia at Lord’s, Kevin Pietersen was moved to exclaim that Eoin Morgan was “scared” of the short ball.

It is an emotive term to use, and who knows what really goes through a batsman’s head? But the involuntary twitch to leg stump of Morgan’s back leg against one bowler in particular during that match was certainly worthy of comment.

The bowler was Mitchell Starc, Australia’s express left-armer, whose fastest ball in the tournament was timed at 152km/h, the third quickest behind Jofra Archer and Mark Wood.

It was not Starc’s pace alone that troubled Morgan, who was caught out hooking cheaply, rather, in all likelihood, a hazy memory of a nasty blow to the head in a one-day international at Old Trafford four years before, one that caused a delayed concussion, ruling him out of cricket for a fortnight afterwards.

If it was a hit that caused Morgan significant pain immediately and then delayed dizziness, then it also shook up Starc. This was barely a year after the tragic death of Phillip Hughes, a memory as fresh as it was upsetting, and by reputation Starc is not from the Jeff Thomson school of fast bowling. Thomson famously said: “I enjoy hitting a batsman more than getting him out. I like to see blood on the pitch,” whereas Starc, above all, likes to see stumps (or toes) shattered by one of his signature yorkers.

MORE: Selectors axe Usman Khawaja | Justin Langer’s lonely job | Broad targets Warner | Steve Waugh jets in

That the episode in question involved Starc and took place at Old Trafford is relevant, because the left-armer’s potential involvement at the venue for the next Ashes Test is the trickiest question Australia must answer before the start of the fourth Test tomorrow. A bowler with more than 200 Test wickets sitting on the bench is a good problem to have, and Starc is only one of a group of six seamers that must rank, in breadth and depth, as among the most potent to have played here in recent years.

It’s time to unleash Starc. Picture: Getty Images

Starc has a significant record: 211 wickets in 51 Tests, at an impressive strike rate. He is only one of seven active Test bowlers — Jasprit Bumrah, Pat Cummins, James Pattinson, Kagiso Rabada, Vernon Philander and Mohammad Abbas, the others — who can boast a strike rate of better than a wicket every 50 balls. That is some firepower to be sitting on the bench.

Old Trafford would seem to be a natural fit for his return: Australia’s fastest bowler, on England’s quickest pitch, and their best exponent of reverse swing on, traditionally, the most abrasive surface in the country. Of all the pitches for this Ashes series, Old Trafford is likely to be the least “English” in character, a pitch that is unlikely to reward traditional virtues of line, length, patience and persistence.

Hard, fast, bouncy and abrasive, it is a surface that plays to different strengths. Wrist spinners enjoy the bounce more than finger spinners (Marnus Labuschagne’s and Joe Denly’s leg spin should get an outing) and quick bowlers tend to get more rewards than seamers.

Now that the pitch has been turned around (facing north-south rather than east-west) you get a cross breeze for the swing bowlers, too, but it is a more open ground than Trent Bridge, say, so excessive swing is rarely a factor, either.

Fast bowlers who can take the pitch out of the equation, by bowling short or full, have often done well at Old Trafford and reverse swing, an absent factor so far this series, can be important. There is no better exponent of any of those things in Australia’s team than Starc. Fresh and eager to roll after an outing at Derby last week, where he took seven wickets, his game should be well suited to Manchester.

England paceman Jofra Archer. Picture: AFP

Two factors are against him. The first is Australia’s determination not to get sucked into a machismo game in response to Archer. Their planning has been based on a sense that England’s free-scoring batsmen are happier when the scoreboard is ticking over and boundaries are flowing, more anxious when they are stifled. Accuracy and patience have been the buzzwords, rather than pace and aggression.

Said one Australian cricket writer to me: “The accountants are in control of the fast-bowling department.”

They have certainly kept England’s batsmen under lock and key: Josh Hazlewood’s economy rate is 2.73; Cummins’s is 2.71; Peter Siddle’s is also 2.71 and Pattinson’s is the lowest of all at 2.56 runs an over.

Accountants or not, the books have looked in decent shape, although what Tim Paine would have given for a bit of Starc magic as the match ran away from him in the third Test at Headingley.

The second factor is the absence of an all-rounder. England’s most productive Ashes in modern times have often come when they have had a top-class all-rounder — Ian Botham in the 1980s, Andrew Flintoff in the 2000s and now, potentially, Ben Stokes. The need for frugality and the absence of a fifth bowler is one reason why, for example, Siddle was picked ahead of Starc for the second Test at Lord’s. As a workhorse rather than battering ram, Siddle bowled the long, economical spells that the absence of a fifth bowler requires.

Australia could pick Mitchell Marsh as an all-rounder instead of Matthew Wade, which would allow short, sharp bursts from Starc and Co. With Steve Smith returning to bolster the ranks and increase the number of right-handers, one of the batsmen will have to make way in any case.

Should Starc play, it will reunite the attack that eviscerated England in Australia two winters ago, a quartet that was responsible for every wicket to fall in that series. Times change, conditions are different and this Australia outfit intends to win the Ashes with brain rather than brawn.

Nevertheless, in Manchester, England would be happy to see Starc on the bench again and, on the basis that you should do what the opposition would least like, he should play.

The Times