Mitchell Starc has bowled a lot shorter in this IPL © BCCI/IPL The jury was divided when KKR broke the bank to acquire Mitchell Starc in IPL 2024 auction. It would be Starc’s first franchise or domestic T20 appearance since he last represented RCB in 2015. In the interim he featured only in T20 Internationals, mostly in World Cups, that were played in largely bowler friendly conditions in UAE in 2021 and early season wickets back home in 2022. IPL is a different beast in itself, and the addition of Impact Player has made it distance further from the rest of the pack. Starc’s modus operandi is well laid out: bowl it full and fast and get it swerve in the air – be it the conventional swing with the new ball or reverse with the old. The ball swings – if at all – for a very small window and if one misses his length, the ball could travel afar. This is a high variance method where if he gets it right he will significantly dent the opponent up top but when he gets things wrong it could go awry for his side. It was evident in how his season with KKR went: he picked up 12 wickets in 11 league games and conceded at 11.37/over but in the two Playoffs games he blew the SRH top order away picking up 5/38 in seven overs across two games, all five coming in the Powerplay. With the KKR experience behind him, Starc seemingly arrived a more adaptable bowler for his first stint with DC. In the first over he bowled in this season, he did not pitch up one ball, preferring to stay on good length or beyond. In the two games so far, he has bowled 43.3% of the balls in back of length or shorter compared to just 23.3% of balls pitched up – almost a reciprocal of his numbers from 2024. Starc – lengths in Powerplay Length Pct. balls (IPL 2024) Wkts (IPL 2024) Pct. balls (IPL 2025) Wkts (IPL 2025) Full 37.40% 5 23.30% 0 Good 39.10% 3 33.30% 1 Short 23.60% 3 43.30% 2 Starc had the wood over his countryman Travis Head dismissing him five times previously in domestic cricket – four of those going through the gate. It was good enough to keep Head at the non-striker’s end for the start of the innings, but the first two balls from Starc to Head today were full and swinging away and met with two crisp boundaries. Starc immediately went around the wicket to cramp Head for room – only the second ball he has bowled from that angle to a southpaw in the Powerplay and the first since 2013 – but was off direction. They did not come face to face in Starc’s next over, but the matchup was good enough for Axar Patel to expend one more over of Starc in the Powerplay. Starc went short again the first ball of the over and got a thick outside edge that lobbed to the wicketkeeper. In the over between, he got Ishan Kishan caught at the deep off a short delivery outside off to a well placed fielder at deep backward point. When Nitish Reddy moved around the crease to disrupt Starc’s rhythm, Starc resorted to an off-cutter to induce a top edge, having used the change of pace just four times in the Powerplay across 14 innings in IPL 2024. Starc will always have the full, inswinging delivery in his quiver but the latest version shows he is more than a one trick pony and the batters need to be wary which they plunge to the front the next time they face him.
