'Caged lion' to apex predator: Starc embraces new role

From a 'caged lion' eager to justify his selection to becoming the leader of the attack, Mitch Starc's lead-in to the opening Test of a home Ashes series could not be more different from the last one four years ago.

With Australia's fast bowling attack to take on a decidedly new look for the first NRMA Insurance Ashes Test on Friday, Starc is the only constant who remains.

Starc will be taking the field without long-time partners in crime Pat Cummins (back) and Josh Hazlewood (hamstring), both of whom have been ruled out with injury.

Instead, Starc will be joined by Scott Boland and one of Brendan Doggett or Michael Neser.

It brings Starc full circle on a four-year cycle that began with being the final Aussie selected for the first Ashes Test of the 2021-22 series and will culminate with him as the team's pace spearhead for the blockbuster series opener against England.

Starc's place in Australia's XI was hotly debated leading into the 2021 Gabba Test, with Jhye Richardson's strong form in the Sheffield Shield putting pressure on the left-armer.

Starc had struggled with fluency in his run-up since September following back-to-back quarantine stints that had restricted him to a hotel room for four weeks following Australia's T20 World Cup victory in Dubai in late 2021.

Yet only days out from the first Test, Starc found his groove during a session in Brisbane's north that convinced both himself and the selectors that he was back to his best.

"We had a couple of sessions out in the middle at Metricon (Gold Coast's Carrara Stadium) ... where it felt good to go," Starc said in 2022.

"And then we had that one session at Ian Healy Oval where it felt like it just clicked.

"The speed was up, I didn't have to think about where my feet were, and I could just worry about what I wanted to bowl.

"It's just part and parcel of the time we're in; there's going to be times where you need to adapt. And in this case, it was me trying to adapt to a run up that I'd somehow forgotten how to do.

"So it was nice that it came good prior to the Ashes."

He famously opened that contest in exhilarating fashion, by bowling England opener Rory Burns around his legs with the first ball of the match.

Starc's reaction was unbridled delight -  a visceral roar of delight and a charge around the ground to nowhere in particular, with neck veins threatening to burst.   

"I remember being a bit of chat about whether I was going to get picked or not," Starc said to cricket.com.au last month when asked to reminisce on that delivery.

"The way Uzzie (Usman Khawaja) describes it was that I was a bit of a caged lion there.

"I was circling at the top of my mark, waiting to get the go ahead.

"Then (I) got one past Rory. And then carried on a little bit."

Not only did Starc produce an iconic Ashes moment with the bowling of Burns, the then-31-year-old embarked on arguably the best cricket of his career.

In the four years since that match Starc has collected another 147 Test wickets, including his 300th and 400th scalps, was awarded his maiden Allan Border Medal and has played 39 of a possible 43 Tests.  

By splitting his stellar career roughly into three stages, the most recent time period has produced marginally better figures in bowling average, strike rate and games played percentage.

Interestingly, Starc collects fewer five-wicket hauls now than he did at the start of his career, but he also has fewer wicketless innings; he picks up at least one wicket in 93 percent of the innings where he bowls at least 10 overs.

Now the 100-gamer Starc will be charged with leading the most inexperienced Australian attack on home soil since December 2022, where Starc was partnered with Boland (fourth Test) and Neser (second Test) against West Indies in Adelaide.

The 35-year-old Starc went through his paces in Perth with a bowl at the side's first training session of the Ashes on Monday, with the mercury hitting 34C on a cloudless afternoon.

2025-26 NRMA Insurance Men's Ashes

First Test: November 21-25, Perth Stadium, 1:20pm AEDT

Second Test: December 4-8, The Gabba, Brisbane (D/N), 3pm AEDT

Third Test: December 17-21: Adelaide Oval, 10:30am AEDT

Fourth Test: December 26-30: MCG, Melbourne, 10:30am AEDT

Fifth Test: January 4-8: SCG, Sydney, 10:30am AEDT

Australia squad: (First Test only): Steve Smith (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Brendan Doggett, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Michael Neser, Mitchell Starc, Jake Weatherald, Beau Webster

England squad: Ben Stokes (c), Harry Brook (vc), Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Brydon Carse, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Will Jacks, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Jamie Smith (wk), Josh Tongue, Mark Wood