A while ago there was an advert in England for directory enquiries that featured two runners in vests with droopy handlebar moustaches. “118, Got Your Number!” the two would holler from various mise en scene. It was big for a while, puncturing the zeitgeist before drifting away as these things tend to. After Mitchell Starc pocketed Zak Crawley for a first-over duck for the second time in the Perth Test with a sinew stretching caught and bowled the retro catchphrase sprang to mind – “695, Got Your Number!”.
Not much later, Ben Stokes nicked a Starc laser beam to Steve Smith at slip. It gave Starc his 10th wicket in the match, a feat not achieved by an Australia bowler in an Ashes Test since Shane Warne in 2005. You have to go even further back to the last time a fast bowler got double digits, Craig McDermott over the river at the Waca in 1991. Starc is making a habit of breaking records these days, and needs only three more wickets to pass Pakistan great Wasim Akram as the left-arm bowler with the most Test scalps.
