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Bailey relishing another summer of Mitch

Starc's World Cup performance continues incredible record in ODI cricket

A year ago, it was the other left-arm fast-bowling Mitchell that was inspiring fear in the hearts of rival cricket teams the world over.

But as the 2015 World Cup approaches its eight-team knockout phase, the man who led Australia into its tournament-opening triumph over England has identified Mitchell Johnson’s new-ball partner Mitchell Starc as the bowler who will be keeping rival batters and strategists awake at night.

Starc is Australia’s leading wicket-taker of the tournament to date, with 12 wickets from four matches at an average of 10.17 and a strike rate of a wicket every 16 deliveries.

But it is his career statistics with the white ball in the ODI format that are at once arresting and revelatory.

Only Saqlain Mushtaq, Pakistan’s original ‘mystery’ spinner, has captured as many wickets as Starc (73) in the first 37 matches of an ODI career which is more than Dennis Lillee (69), Shane Warne (66) and West Indian great Curtly Ambrose (65) had at the same stage of their one-day journey.

And of all the specialist bowlers who have forged a career in the 50-over game at international level (those who have played 25 or more ODIs and taken 50 or more wickets) nobody has recorded a better strike rate than Starc’s current 23.99 (that translates to a wicket every four overs).

That is significantly fewer deliveries on average than some of the one-day game’s greats including big names that feature in this World Cup such as Sri Lanka’s Lasith Malinga (31.33) and South Africa’s Dale Steyn (31.51).

George Bailey, who captained Starc in more than a dozen ODIs while filling in for the injured Michael Clarke in recent years, believes it is the Australia swing bowler rather than the superstar quicks of rival nations who looms as a potential matchwinner in a tournament thus far dominated by batsmen.

"I would say that he’s more feared," Bailey said today in Hobart when he was quizzed on whether Starc now deserves to be bracketed alongside the likes of Steyn and his Proteas’ teammate Morne Morkel as the most potent strike bowler at either end of a batting innings.

"I think he’s got some specific skills at the death that very few guys in the world are able to produce.

"That would be weighing on teams' minds.

"And hopefully if he's doing that really well then along with James Faulkner's skill at the death, Patty Cummins and Josh Hazlewood does it really well as well which means teams don’t really know when it’s that time to launch and you can put a bit of pressure on them earlier."

Most notable among Starc's weaponry is the late-swinging yorker delivered at pace with the old ball, which makes it difficult for batsmen who are set to score heavily from him in the final overs and almost impossible for new batsmen to the crease to defend their stumps.

That is highlighted by the fact eight of Starc's 12 wickets in this tournament have been clean bowled, almost double the success rate of the next-best bowler under that criterion, New Zealand's Trent Boult (five).

Bailey, who captained Australia in their World Cup opener against England at the MCG before being squeezed out of the team when Clarke fully recovered from hamstring surgery, has also played against Starc in domestic first-class and 50-over games as well as the KFC Big Bash League and the Indian Premier League.

And he claims that Starc's emergence as a consistent wicket-taking force this summer and especially in the opening rounds of the World Cup, to the point that he now takes the new ball ahead of Johnson, comes as no surprise.

"We've seen that ability in him for many years and he's had patches where he's put it together and the really pleasing thing is he’s been really consistent with it," Bailey said.

"In many respects now he's earned the right to get the new ball and to bowl at the end that he wants to bowl and that best helps his swing.

"I guess he's really come on in leaps and bounds but I’m just proud of how consistent he’s become.

"I think the player he is and the kind of impact he can have we’ve seen that once or twice a series but for him to be able to put that on the park consistently is just huge.

"He's making a real impact for us.

"His ability to take wickets is something we talk about to Mitch, but we talk about that to all our bowlers.

"It's about controlling the game, it’s about dictating and to have someone with that strike power and for the other guys to have someone like that to work around is fantastic."