Australia’s pace spearhead Mitchell Starc has expressed his delight over his side’s much-improved bowling performance in their second group game against Bangladesh after the world champions’ formidable pace attack was taken to cleaners by New Zealand’s top-order in their tournament opener.
After leaking 16 fours and three maximums in the first 15 overs against the Black Caps, the Aussie pacers produced an improved show against Bangladesh with Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins conceding just three boundaries in the same period before the left-arm pacer ran through Bangladesh’s lower-order, as the Asian country was bowled out for a paltry 182 inside 45 overs.
“We all had a much cleaner performance with the ball,” Starc said. “We all contributed the way we wanted to. Obviously, we had a fair bit to talk about after the last fixture, it’s been pleasing to put that on the board and respond in a positive way after the New Zealand game.”
Starc finished with figures of four for 29 while Hazlewood and Cummins took one wicket apiece. Starc further sounded delighted to get back to his best after missing almost two months of action since sustaining a foot injury in India in March.
“Yes it’s nice to play cricket again, it’s been a long time,” he said. “Been all warms ups and that sort of thing, so it’s nice to get these two games under the belt, get some rhythm back, so great for the group to end on a positive note tonight before obviously the big game (vs England) in a few days time.”
Starc said that he would continue to be aggressive in his approach irrespective of the conditions and kept the cards close to his chest while talking about the team’s plans for the crucial must-win encounter against hosts England on Saturday (June 10).
“I don’t change my game plan too much, pretty simple the way I approach my cricket regardless of where I’m, it’s always pretty aggressive,” he said. “It’s much easy when there is Josh at the other end, he can hit the spot so consistently. We change things depending on what conditions are presented. Obviously, it was a warm wicket today, so we had to change out lengths a little bit. The spinner came in, there might have been turn for some balls. It might be a fresh wicket at Birmingham on Saturday, when we get there, we will talk about the lineup.”
With pitches in England not providing ample support for the Pacers in the ongoing tournament like it used to do, Starc feels Australia’s pace attack can compensate for it provided the bowlers are on target.
“It can be good-bad,” he pointed out. “Obviously if you are not on the money, it can go pear shaped but we have got a bit of pace in the change room, so when we get it right like we did today, we can close down the scoreboard, take wickets towards the back end as well.
“It’s something we have done pretty well, to be able to fight back with the ball if we haven’t started well. We have spoken about it in the last couple of days, we haven’t been able to start well in recent series, if we can do that, we can always fight back with the ball.”
Starc also admitted that the knockout situation against England can bring the best out of his teammates. With both of Australia’s group games being washed out, they need to win their final game against the Ashes rivals to have any chance of making it to the top four.
“I reckon it’s good I think we will perform at our best when we know it’s a knockout situation,” he conceded. “I think it brings the best out of a lot of our players. Everyone’s looking forward to this fixture.”