Thursday 1 December 2011

Scout Report: Mitchell Starc

What do you say? An Australian left-arm quick bowler called Mitchell? Does he spray the ball around everywhere and only occasionally pull out good spells from nowhere?

Well, not quite, this is Mitchell Starc, not Johnson, and at first sight he seems just as exciting a prospect as Johnson did when he first arrived on the scene, and with much fewer technical faults in his action.

He isn't as quick as Johnson, but in a few other ways he's similar. He has the same long delivery stride and the same sort of shoulder based action, but good news, that's pretty much where the similarities end. Starc runs up with a loping gait, and based on his run up he looks fairly medium pace. Then he extends his front leg into a big delivery stride and slings the ball down at around 85mph. When it's full it swings, when it's shorter it seams, and when it's even shorter it can cause the batsman some pain.

On his first day of test cricket today, he's taken two wickets, both with short and wide deliveries, firstly cramping McCullum for room then getting Ryder swishing outside off, both cut shots going straight to Warner at point.

So far so good, and he can only get quicker and better, but a word of warning: he could be another Johnson.

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