Nostalgia Cam: Startled by Mitchell Starc
Towards the end of 2014, Shane Warne ruffled a few feathers by terming Mitchell Starc soft. Within a few months, Starc answered most his critics by firing down yorkers during Australia’s world cup winning campaign, and earning the Player of the Tournament award for bagging 22 wickets.
In the big ticket final he had cleaned Brendon McCullum with a picture perfect yorker to dash the Kiwi hope of putting up a big total against the hosts.
But IPL was different. As the tournament gathered momentum, Chennai Super Kings openers Brenndon McCullum and Dwayne Smith got into a ruthless mood making a mockery of the bowling attacks.
On 4th May 2015, barely a month after that ‘yorker from hell’ courtesy Starc, CSK hosted Royal Challengers Bangalore. Starc was spearheading the attack. With McCullum at the other end, Smith took strike.
Mitch bowled with the first over with full tilt. The left-arm pace of the Aussie was too hot to handle. For the first five deliveries, Smith appeared clueless, failing to lay bat on the ball off all the deliveries.
Had McCullum learnt the trick the hard way? Was there any piece of advice he could share with Smith to safeguard his wicket? Maybe he did. But it did not work.
The last ball of the over was full, straight and swinging in and crashed into the stumps. Starc kicked off the innings with a maiden wicket. Smith was left bewildered much like his partner was a month ago.
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