You can blame Mitchell Starc for many technical errors in this IPL. The lengths weren't ideal in their first match at the Eden Gardens and the fast bowlers in Bengaluru will have an uncertain path anyway. The justification with the yorkers was clearly missing, and somehow, they didn't take enough pace off the ball.
Pit in the background Kolkata Knight Riders Breaking the bank to buy him ₹24.75 crores at one time Pat Cummins Sunrisers is burning the turf with his changes for Hyderabad and the murmurs are inevitable. But one thing you can never fault Stark for is his persistence.
Before Sunday, Stark He had just two wickets to his name with an economy of over 11. However, those numbers don't do justice to the small improvements Starc has made in each match – having conceded four sixes in his first match and none in the last two. Increases his scores by 10 per game and eventually gets the hang of death bowling.
The three wickets he picked up on Sunday were more impactful, two of them coming in the last over of the Lucknow Supergiants' innings, as his batsmen aimed for the maximum with each hit.
There is no guarantee that Starc will repeat his magnificent performance of 3/28 against Rajasthan Royals on Tuesday but he also understands the volatile nature of the game.
“I don't read anything so it doesn't bother me,” Starc said after KKR's eight-wicket win here on Sunday. “I haven't played a lot of T20 cricket in the last two years, so maybe it took me a little longer than I wanted to get back into the swing of things and make a good impact. So today was happy in that regard.”
Starc does not bowl much in T20s. In fact, he has featured in only two T20Is for Australia since they won their T20 World Cup in 2022. That's just more of a challenge for Starc to come in and deliver in a grinding, high-intensity tournament like the IPL.
“This is T20 cricket. For guys who play a lot of Test cricket, it's definitely a lot easier physically. It's probably more about getting used to the tactical side of it,” he said.
He has played in all five KKR matches so far but it will be time to rest him. Even if they don't, Stark is fine with it. “I'm 34, so I'm pretty good with my workload. I've been doing this for a long time, which is great.
Starc finally hitting his T20 strides is probably the last piece of the puzzle for KKR, with Sunil Narine reiterating his worth on a daily basis, Harshit Rana testing the top order with decent lines and Andre Russell or Varun Chakraborty taking care of the middle overs. Still, many of KKR's problems seem to stem from their inability to check runs in slog overs where they average 12 per over. That's where Starc delivered on Sunday.
It was a risk, given that both the games before this saw Starc bowl slog overs, conceding 23 (to RCB) and 31 (to SRH) in two overs each. And with one of the world's best slog-over hitters, Nicholas Pooran, taking the strike, Starc had to make an early statement.
He did it on the first ball, pitched length and wide outside off, Pooran asked to reach it. All Pooran could do was put it behind him. Stark's celebrations were muted though. If he hadn't dwelled too much on his initial struggle, Stark would not have been eager to walk away from this success.
“We play again on Tuesday and I think that's the hallmark of T20 cricket, whether you have a good day or a bad day—you quickly focus on the next game.”