Adelaide, Dec 6, 2024
Left-arm pacer Mitchell Starc’s affinity of taking wickets with the pink Kookaburra ball in day-night Tests continued when his career-best haul of 6-48 in 14.1 overs helped Australia bowl out India for 180 on day one of the Adelaide Test.
On a pitch with six mm grass, Starc trapped Yashasvi Jaiswal lbw with the very first delivery of the game, with many made to recall the way he castled Rory Burns at the Gabba in 2021. He then made a double strike to dismiss KL Rahul and Virat Kohli, before taking out Ravichandran Ashwin, Harshit Rana, and Nitish Kumar Reddy to end with his first Test five-for against India.
“I don’t know. I can’t tell. Feel like the ball has been coming out well; we did not play that bad; they played better than us in Perth. Not that much to be honest (on if he visualised getting swing first-ball to Jaiswal). Nothing really changes game by game, was a nice start,” said Starc to broadcasters during dinner break.
His lethal spell blowing India away meant Starc consolidated his position as the leading wicket-taker in pink-ball Tests, and has the most five-wicket hauls in this form of playing Test cricket. He also said he had cramps towards the end of his spell due to humid weather in Adelaide.
“Certainly did not help the engine, got a bit cramped at the end. It (the pink ball) goes through weird patches, won’t do much and then does go, day 1 you expect with a little bit of grass to do a bit, maybe with the forecast we have it dries out a bit later on but apart from the first hour when we were a bit wide we were good.”(Agency)
