Veteran Australia speedster Mitchell Starc’s form in the IPL 2024 came under the scanner as he failed to perform initially. However, he made headlines with his stunning four-wicket haul against Mumbai Indians on Friday, May 3 in Mumbai.
When he was asked about what triggered the change in fortunes, he said, “I haven’t changed too much. It’s about assessing conditions after the first innings. We certainly spoke about it and the batters that came off throughout that first innings mentioned the wicket and the lengths that were the hardest to face. That created the bowling plans for us.”
“As T20 cricket doesn’t always go the way you want it to go, and of course I wanted to go a bit better at the start. But I am not the only bowler going for runs. It is what it is. The fact that we sit second [on the points table] and are building towards the more important games at the back end and are playing some good cricket, hopefully I can be a part of it too.”
However, Starc has not been used much by Cricket Australia over the years, as part of the workload management. Moreover, he himself has prioritized international cricket over franchise leagues as well. But, with the T20 World Cup 2024 around the corner, Starc returned to the IPL and became the most costliest player as well.
“It’s T20 cricket, it’s not as demanding as Test match cricket,” he said. “Physically it is not a problem and it’s fantastic lead-in to play here in the best T20 league in the world. You’re playing some high-quality cricket leading into the World Cup, a lot of players at this tournament are going to be at the World Cup. In that regard, it’s a great thing to see and test your skills. In terms of length of time, that’s part and parcel of international cricket. My main focus is to play in Lucknow in two days’ time. The World Cup is next month – at this moment, it’s [about] trying to help KKR win the tournament.”
Meanwhile, Mumbai Indians’ leg-spinner Piyush Chawla praised KKR for their all-round show.
“Credit to Venky and Manish for the way they batted. And the way they (KKR) used the Impact Player rule because if they wouldn’t have lost that many wickets, they would have added a bowler. But they lost so many wickets, so Manish came in. He is an experienced campaigner. The way he batted, he just batted according to the situation and stitched a good partnership with Venky. It was a very good partnership.”
However, Mumbai Indians also had a tweak to their Impact Player choice as former captain Rohit Sharma became that for the second half. In the earlier games, Suryakumar Yadav had been MI’s impact player in most games as well.
“He just had a mild back stiffness so it was just a precautionary thing,” Chawla concluded. “I won’t say that it’s just the batting or just the bowling (that is failing), it’s the unit. You must have often heard that T20 cricket is all about momentum and we just didn’t get that momentum going this season. It happens to all teams at some point. It can happen to anyone.”
