Refreshed Starc geared up for Caribbean challenge
Dec 31, 2018 at 2:04 PM
Mitchell Starc has been the pioneer behind Australia’s success in ODI cricket in the recent years. The fiery pacer was the Man of the Series in the 2015 World Cup as he ended the tournament with 22 scalps. Despite Australia losing the Ashes, the pacer had a memorable tour of England as he was among the wickets.
Starc though was ruled out for a long time owing to a knee injury and since that Day and Night test at Adelaide against New Zealand, Starc hasn’t played any competitive cricket. The paper now has recovered and is raring to go in the tri-series in the Caribbean. In a chat with cricket.com.au, Starc said that the break worked for him as he relaxed quite a bit.
“So having six months off, although it was through injury, was nice to refresh a little bit and go through what I have to do in terms of cricket and strength wise,” said Starc. “It was nice to spend three or four months in the gym to get that strength back that I’d lost over 12 to 18 months of cricket.”It was nice to get that back, rest the little things that I needed to and make sure the ankle and the foot were 100 per cent right before I started to play cricket again. “I think I’ve ticked all those boxes and that hunger has definitely come back a lot stronger that it was at the end of that Ashes series.”
Starc elaborated about his preparation and said that he was in good shape for the tri-series. “I feel in a good place,” Starc said. “I really needed those sessions in Brisbane to tell myself that I was ready to bowl. “I had a lot of net sessions in Sydney and a lot of bowling to empty nets, so it was nice to come up to Brisbane and bowl to a few batsmen and see how it was all coming along.”
“It might take a couple of games to see where that pace is and see if I can get that back. It doesn’t normally happen straight away, especially for the quicks. “It’ll be interesting to gauge where that’s at, but it’s feeling good. “I’ve had a few months of bowling under the belt, starting from a couple of steps to full tilt in Brisbane before the tour. So it’s feeling good and they’re coming out pretty nicely,” Starc concluded.