Starc aiming to emulate Johnson’s Ashes heroics

Cricket365
October 3, 2017

Australia fast bowler Mitchell Starc said he and the rest of the bowling attack will try to emulate the performance of Mitchell Johnson when the Ashes series against England gets underway later this year.

A left-arm bowler with ferocious pace, Johnson took 37, and claimed three man of the match awards, in the Ashes in 2013/2014 as Australia swept to a five-nil series whitewash.

Some of the England batsmen genuinely looked scared to face up to Johnson and now Starc, also a left-arm quick, is aiming to have the same impact in the series that starts with the first Test in Brisbane on 23 November.

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Starc told reporters in Sydney: “It’s a very different Australian team and an opportunity for a few of the younger, less experienced guys to get on top of them much like Mitch did to some of their batsmen through that series [in 2013-14].

“They’ve got [Joe] Root and [Alastair] Cook up the top who’ve played a lot of cricket and probably their main guys with the bat, the guys in the top order around them are pretty inexperienced and hopefully we can exploit that in our conditions and if we can, really get on top of them in the first Test like Mitch did a couple of years ago.

“This time we’ve got a few guys who can bowl pretty quick and bowl some good bouncers, and we’ve got a really solid attack who complement each other.

“If it’s not me, you’ve got Pat Cummins bowling fast bouncers, you’ve got Josh Hazlewood bowling consistent line and length, so much like that attack did when Jono took all those wickets, I think we complement each other really well.

“You throw in Jackson Bird, [Nathan] Coulter-Nile’s bowling well as well, so five really good guys there, Patto [James Pattinson] if he’s fit to go.

“We’ve got a really good attack there, it’s not down to one person, everyone will like to bowl like Jono and terrorise the Poms like he did and take 1000 wickets in a series, but the great thing for us is we’ve got a young group that complement each other really nicely.”

Starc will play his first competitive match since June when runs out for New South Wales in the domestic one-day competition on Friday and is hoping to build up his match fitness ahead of the Ashes.