Though he may not touch the 99mph heights of his second Test, external these days, Starc’s average pace has remained solidly above 87mph throughout the latter part of his career.
An ability he held from the very start shows no sign of fading.
“He was tall, proper tall, and had really good air speed which stood out in my mind,” Nielsen says.
“He could also swing the ball back into the right-hander.”
Swinging the ball and crashing into the toes, pads or grille was, like Johnson, Wasim and so many other left-armers before him, Starc’s main approach during the first two-thirds of his career.
But, after being dropped during the 2019 Ashes tour, Starc added the wobble seam delivery to his armoury by the time he returned to England in 2023.
No-one in the world has taken as many as Starc’s 118 Test wickets since the start of that 2023 series. Even India superstar Jasprit Bumrah, in the prime period of his career, trails by 12.
The wobble seam has been a key reason.
“Mitchell Starc just shows you can teach an old job new tricks,” says former Australia pace bowler Jason Gillespie.
“He watched a lot of Stuart Broad and James Anderson and spoke to them about it.
“For a player aged 34 or 35 to stride and get better to improve is fantastic.”
The wobbler has added greater mystery to Starc’s game.
When hurling down the ball with a wobbling seam rather than looking to hoop it, some deliveries jag unpredictably off the surface after pitching. Others will push on straight and bring in the outside edge.
Zak Crawley and Joe Root both fell to Starc wobble balls in the opening hour of this series.
Starc’s number of dismissals caught in the slips has jumped by almost 10% in the past three years.
“The key to the wobble seam is to have your fingers and wrist right behind the ball and release the ball off your middle finger,” Gillespie says.
“With the wobble seam Mitchell Starc will hold the ball with the seam angled towards gully.
“If you release it at the right time it will wobble down the pitch and that creates doubt for the batter.
“He has been working hard at developing that because he feels that wobble seam going across brings the keeper and slips into play and makes his inswinger to the right hander more of a surprise.”
England’s torment by Mitchells may go on longer than you think.
