Sporting songs from the outer are usually dross, partly because they’re most often sung tunelessly by annoying drunks, and partly because they usually consist of one cringey couplet jammed with no consideration of cadence or metre into the scarcely heeded melodic line of a mid-tier radio hit. The few that are slightly more artful stand out, appearing far better by virtue of their company than they might objectively deserve. One such of recent years that provides occasional enjoyment is: “Hark, the herald angels sing – Mitchell Starc, the new-ball king.”
The phrasing fits, the use of a Christmas hymn is seasonally apt for Australia in December or January, and the sentiment reflects a cricketing truth. Starc with a lacquered Kookaburra (while that sounds a strange object to possess without context) is a menace. But swap out the lyrics of “new-ball” for “pink-ball” and it would be even more apt. In the day-night Test format, nobody has done it better.
When the second Test began against India at Adelaide Oval on Friday, so began Australia’s 13th day-nighter. Starc has played 13 of them. When the first innings ended after the second session, he had 72 wickets in the format at 17.81 runs apiece, an otherworldly body of work supplemented by his latest haul of six for 48.
Nathan Lyon is the only other cricketer to have played all 13, and while he was limited to a single over here, he has bowled more overs than Starc collectively. His wicket tally is barely half as many, currently standing at 43. The same goes for Josh Hazlewood with 37, while Pat Cummins on 36 has exactly half.
Those are the top four in the world and, partly, that’s down to opportunity: of non-Australians in day-night Tests, a few Englishmen have played six or seven, while India’s Ravichandran Ashwin and West Indies’ Kraigg Braithwate have five. But in his 13 matches Starc has taken his wickets at a strike rate of 34.6 – fewer than six overs per dismissal. Those with a better number in this column have mostly bowled very little, with Ashwin’s 88 overs by far the most. Starc has kept up his record across 416 overs and 10 years.
He bowled as that record suggests on day one. Arriving at the crease, the new ball on the TV screens glowing luridly like a rave toy in his hand, he curled one down at Yashasvi Jaiswal that did everything a new-ball swing bowler could hope for. Starting on the left-hander’s leg stump, it came back enough to beat the bat and smash the pad in front of middle and leg. Finger up, and a tip to Jaiswal: that wasn’t his slower ball.
It was the third time in his career that Starc had struck first ball of a match, after taking out Rory Burns’ leg stump in the Brisbane Ashes Test of 2021, and having Dimuth Karunaratne clip one to midwicket in Galle in 2016. Pedro Collins is the only other bowler to do that thrice.
Then strangely, that start seemed like the end of Australia’s good fortune, as Shubman Gill and KL Rahul made the best of plenty of luck, surviving dropped catches and no-ball wickets while getting Starc away for runs through dicey and slicey shots. They built their partnership past 60, with Australia starting to look flat. But Starc’s return before the break pumped things back up. His extra bounce brought a pair of strange dismissals, with Rahul and then Virat Kohli unable to keep bat from ball while trying to leave, deflecting catches from their backlift to the cordon.
Into the second session, after Scott Boland and Cummins had added wickets thanks to the opening that Starc had created, he returned, and for the third time in the day took a wicket in the opening over of his spell. Ashwin’s lbw was beyond doubt, prompting one of the worst reviews imaginable as the full ball swinging into his ankle was indeed confirmed to be hitting the base of middle stump.
Harshit Rana’s shot was as comically ambitious as Ashwin’s review: a square drive off the back foot with the bat about nine inches wide of the line of the near-yorker that smashed up his stumps with no concern about being interrupted on its way. And while no Indian innings is complete on this tour without Nitish Kumar Reddy smacking some dingers at the end, the one luxuriant six that he launched from Starc soon had its invoice arrive, via a skied drive caught at mid-off.
In Perth, Starc had struggled for impact after dismissing both openers early on day one. In Adelaide, he saw the job through. India were all out for 180 to open the second Test, similar to their 150 in the first. Unlike Perth, though, Australia’s batters offered the other necessary part of the equation, reaching stumps one wicket down with 86 on the board.
Jasprit Bumrah again bowled some sensational deliveries, dismissing Usman Khawaja and having Nathan McSweeney dropped, but also struggled at times with the pink ball swinging for extras down the leg-side. He hunted, but his principal quarry Marnus Labuschagne made it back to the burrow. Bumrah is one of those rare customers with a day-night strike close to Starc’s, but he is only playing his fourth such match, and has so far bowled 64 overs with a pink ball after a couple of very brief outings in India. On the evidence of this first day, even before the night came in, Mitchell Starc remains the king.
