The Starc reality of facing the new ball

As a batsman of the open-the-innings variety, Aaron Finch knows innately the type of bowling you want in that very first over when the ball is brand new and the nerves are raw.

A loosener from a bowler still feeling the pinch of his prior workload that lands halfway down the pitch and sits up asking to be belted to the boundary.

Or a couple of miscued missiles fired wide of their target as the bowler struggles to calibrate his radar and the batter is given a few precious sighters to judge the pace, the bounce, the nuances of the surface at his feet.

What you don’t want is a bloke bowling with frightening pace, laser-like accuracy and sufficient mastery of his skills set that he can land the ball precisely where he wants – which, contrastingly, is where the batsman likes it least – from the outset of every new spell.

READ: Super Starc breaks world record

In other words, you don’t want to look up from your batting stance with zero against your name and see Mitchell Starc at the top of his run-up, holding that ‘Asian squat’ he habitually drops into moments before beginning his loping approach to the crease.

"It’s a lot more fun than facing him, I can tell you," Finch said today when asked what it was like to hold a front-row seat as Starc became the fastest (in terms of matches played) to reach 100 ODI wickets in the game’s 45-year history.

"Just the skills that he has – swing, pace, left-arm, yorkers, he can bowl good bouncers.

"It’s a pretty complete package.

"He’s been the best in the world for a number of years now and when he gets it right there’s absolutely no-one better around." 

Tough enough to tame even when you’ve had a chance to get settled, adjust to the conditions and the atmosphere and the tempo.

And to get a handle on how much the ball is swinging, how far it’s moving off the pitch, how quickly it’s thudding into your bat.

Or your stumps, as has routinely been the case on this Qantas Tour of Sri Lanka where Starc has dislodged an opposition opener in the first over he’s bowled in five of the nine innings that he’s led Australia’s attack.

In the tour game against a Sri Lanka Board XI it was little known batter Osanda Fernando who was thrown in against a bowler with a rightful claim to being currently the world’s best, and was promptly spat out with a pair of ducks.

Pinned lbw with a characteristic in-swinging yorker from the third ball of Starc’s maiden over of the tour, and then caught at first slip trying to drive at a ball angled across him at the end of the opening over of the second innings.

In the following week’s first Test at Pallekele, Starc was forced to wait until his third over before breakthrough came – Dimuth Karunaratne pushed back in his crease by a series of short balls and then nailed in front of his stumps for five. 

It was to become a recurring theme throughout the remaining Tests for the left-handed opener who had looked Sri Lanka’s most assured batter in their previous match against England at Lord’s.

Trapped lbw for a third-ball duck in the second innings at Pallekele (having been dropped down the order to number three, to which Starc responded by taking two wickets in his second over).

Picked up at square leg from the very first ball (bowled by Starc) in the next Test at Galle, then caught in the gully for seven from Starc’s second over in the subsequent innings.

By the time the teams got to Colombo’s SSC Ground for the last Test, there was a feeling that Sri Lanka’s number three batsman should accompany Karunaratne to the crease so inevitable was his early demise to the rampaging Australian fast bowler.

In the first innings there he hung until the first ball of Starc’s second spell, when he was bowled for seven but any thoughts that giving him a spell from the ODI games to follow and installing Kusal Perera in his place might help alter the script proved misguided. 

When Perera had his off stump tilted back by a swift, straight, full delivery that he was simply too slow in trying to impede with his bat. 

"We always talk about setting the tone, and more often than not I get the first over," Starc said today in relation to his extraordinary new-ball strike rate.

"So I want to try and set a good tone, and a wicket is the best way to do that.

"I’m not going to change the way I bowl, I’m going to be aggressive and try and bowl as fast as I can and take wickets.

"And having Josh (Hazlewood) at the other end allows me to do that because he can bowl so consistently and doesn’t really go for many runs.

"So I think that allows me to bowl as fast as I can and as aggressively as I can.

"It’s something I do in all formats of cricket is try and take wickets often.

"If I can get one in the first over more often than not, I think we can get away to a good start."

Starc’s reputation for landing a defining blow in the period that is traditionally set aside for initial sparring was built during last year’s World Cup campaign in Australia and New Zealand.

And enshrined when he blasted past the bat of Black Caps’ skipper Brendon McCullum with just the fifth delivery of the Final at the MCG.

Since then, the 26-year-old’s strike rate has been so consistently scary it cannot be written off as merely good fortune or opposition inattention. 

In the 18 months since Starc was crowned man of the tournament in Australia’s World Cup triumph – and during which he’s spent six months sidelined due to major ankle surgery – he has taken a wicket in his opening over nine times in the international arena.

In Tests against the West Indies in Jamaica (twice in his first over of the second innings), against England at Lord’s, and against Sri Lanka at Galle and Colombo.

Likewise with the white ball, he’s done it to Ireland (at Belfast), England (Old Trafford), the West Indies (Guyana and Barbados) and now the Sri Lankans at Premadasa Stadium.

And while Starc believes it was that World Cup campaign in which he took 22 wickets at an average of barely runs each where the pieces all fell snugly into place, it was the months of toil he undertook with Australia’s then bowling coach Craig McDermott that carried him to that point.

"There was a lot of work done before that with Craig McDermott especially, in the 12 months prior to the World Cup,” Starc said.

"Tinkering on a few things with my wrist (position) and swinging the ball, and in the tri-series (against England and India) before the World Cup I think everything started to click and it all felt really good.

"Then obviously through the World Cup was a pretty special period for the whole group, and for me it was nice just to get the ball in the right areas more often than I probably had in the past.

"That was probably one little period that will always stand out.

"It was very special."