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Is Starc Australia's most valuable cricketer?

Mitchell Starc has brought up an impressive, if hard to correctly recall, record. (AAP Image/Joe Castro)
Expert
14th June, 2016
12

Steve Smith is Australia’s captain and one of the true superstars of international cricket.

Yet it is arguable that the two men who were absent from the side as Australia lost to the West Indies yesterday – paceman Mitchell Starc and opener David Warner – are just as valuable, taking into account all three formats.

Without Starc and Warner Australia looked far weaker on paper, and proved to be vulnerable in practice too, losing to a West Indies side who, incredibly, had won only two of its previous 22 ODIs against Australia.

Starc’s left-arm variety, intimidation factor and swing were sorely missed. The Australian attack looked solid but largely unthreatening on a Basseterre pitch which suited them, offering reasonable pace and bounce.

Starc’s replacement, Nathan Coulter-Nile, is a handy back-up, having snared 26 wickets at an average of 26 in his brief ODI career. But he struggled for direction at Basseterre and the West Indies batsmen relished facing him rather than Australia’s spearhead.

There is little doubt that Starc is Australia’s best limited-overs player. In fact, it is arguable that there is no more valuable limited-overs player than him in world cricket.

AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli are extraordinarily dominant with the blade in both ODIs and T20. Yet their batting accomplishments are being piled up in an era where it seems almost every factor in limited overs cricket falls in the favour of batsmen.

Starc is producing historic bowling numbers swimming against this tide. Batting averages and team totals have skyrocketed in recent years. Meanwhile, the Australian quick somehow has built an ODI record which would have been phenomenal even in the 1980s, when 220 was a great team total and a batting average of 35 was very good.

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After 48 ODIs, Starc has 95 wickets at 19. His strike rate of 24 is unparalleled in ODI history among bowlers with more than 50 wickets to their name. He needs only to take five wickets in his next four matches to become the quickest ever to 100 ODI wickets, breaking Saqlain Mushtaq’s 21-year-old record.

In T20s, Starc is even more indispensable. The moment he was ruled out of the recent World T20 with injury Australia’s hopes of lifting the trophy were slashed from middling to nix. With 123 wickets at 17 in T20s, Starc has the greatest record by a paceman in the format’s history.

No T20 quick can match his ability to make crucial early breakthroughs. Yet he’s also arguably the finest death bowler in world T20, with his searing yorkers the best in the business.

This short-form dominance has yet to be transferred to Test cricket. But the retirement of Mitchell Johnson has made Starc significantly more valuable with the red ball. The angle, pace and bounce he provides perfectly complements the subtler, steadier skills of Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon.

Given the increasingly flat pitches being rolled out across the world in Tests, having variety and so-called x-factor in your attack is more important than ever. A Test attack of Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, Peter Siddle and Chadd Sayers looks very solid and reliable.

On a seaming English wicket it would be formidable, but on a batting-friendly surface it may well lack penetration. For this reason, the Australian selectors clearly favour having at least one out-and-out strike bowler in the Test team at all times.

There is merit in such a policy, although it went awry during the Ashes when they fielded two such bowlers in Johnson and Starc, when one would have sufficed. Starc now has the perfect new ball partner in Hazlewood.

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The manner in which Hazlewood suffocates top-order batsmen with his precise spells prompts them to try to score instead off the less frugal Starc. This generates greater wicket-taking opportunities for the left armer. Starc’s Test record of 91 wickets at 30 is not overly impressive.

It must be remembered however, that his first 15 Tests were broken up across at least seven or eight different stints in the team. The selectors made a mess of Starc during his first four years in the national setup, as they continually dropped, rested or rotated him in and out of the Test line-up.

When finally he was given a lengthy stint in the side, and offered a chance to build momentum, he flourished. His last ten Tests, played consecutively, saw Starc grab 41 wickets at 24.

During that period we saw evidence of the wrecking ball he can become in Test cricket.

If his body holds together, Starc may soon surpass Smith and Warner as the most valuable cricketer in not just Australia but the world.

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