MATCH STORY
Follow UsDeath, taxes and Mitchell Starc in big matches.
Before the playoffs, one of the premier Aussie white-ball pacers was having an underpar IPL season. Considering he was paid INR 24.75 crore, the most for any player in an auction, you may well term his season as ‘poor.’
Starc had 12 wickets in 11 matches, going at an economy of 11.4 runs per over while averaging 33. Both numbers were above the mean for pacers in the league stage: average 29.4, economy 10.
Tasked to be a wicket-taker upfront, Starc suffered the wrath of an intent-driven IPL season without lateral movement for the new ball bowlers, going wicketless in the powerplay in five out of 11 games. Even in the two league games where he created a significant impact in the favor of KKR, he picked wickets at the back end of the innings – 3/28 against LSG & 4/33 against MI.
Facing Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Qualifier 1, it was imperative for KKR to strike early. Otherwise, the SRH openers could take the game away in the blink of an eye.
Starc was Kolkata’s biggest hope. Even on his worst days, he has the raw materials to exploit the flaws in Travis Head’s defensive technique. Head, with his feet planted while defending on the front foot, offers plenty of gap between his bat and the front pad. Social media was buzzed with the compilation of the left-arm crashing the ball into Head’s stumps multiple times in domestic cricket.
Add to it the conditions at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. In this IPL season, heavily biased towards batters, Ahmedabad has had the second-lowest batting average in the powerplay during the league stage (29.3).
Starc had a chance. KKR could dare to dream knowing SRH haven’t done well when the openers are back in the hut early.
Bowling first, Starc got the job done in the first over itself. Heck, he got it done on the second ball of the night, swinging one in past Head’s booming drive, almost reminiscent of him dismissing Brendon McCullum in the first over of the 50-over World Cup final in 2015.
Starc pitched the ball around the same length where Arshdeep Singh got him bowled for a first-ball duck in the penultimate league game only two days ago. Arshdeep jagged it away to trim the off stump, Starc moved it in to flatten Head’s middle and off stump.
Next over, Vaibhav Arora had the better of Abhishek Sharma and KKR ticked the box of getting both openers out early.
Bowling throughout the powerplay, Starc added two more to his kitty, making Nitish Kumar Reddy top edge a pull shot and causing Shahbaz Ahmed to edge one onto his stumps on the next ball. His powerplay figures read 3/22 in three overs. This is the first time he has taken three wickets during the powerplay in IPL. It could have been 4/21 had KKR reviewed an lbw call against Rahul Tripathi in the third over.
SRH never recovered from those early jolts as they folded for 159 in 19.3 overs. Starc finished with 3/34 in his four overs. He set the ball rolling for Australia in the 2015 World Cup final. Here, he set the tone for KKR in Qualifier 1.
In the 2023 ODI World Cup, Starc upped his game in the knockout stage. In the group games, he leaked runs at 6.6 runs per over while picking 10 wickets at 43.9 runs apiece. In the final and semifinal, his figures were 6/89 in 20 overs.
It sets the biggest narrative of Starc’s white-ball career - cometh the big stage, cometh Mitchell Starc.
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