JOIN USMitchell Starc has effectively filled in the role of a strike bowler for Australia in the absence of Mitchell Johnson.
His 6/43 set up Australia’s four-wicket against India here on Sunday but the paceman says he won’t mind playing the support cast once Johnson returns to action. Excerpts:
On being the strike bowler: We all know our roles really well. When Johnson is back he will bowl fast and aggressive so we are all trying to pick up the slack. It will be great to have him back. Meanwhile, it’s great taking wickets, trying to bowl fast and doing my role for the team. When Mitch comes back at some point, the roles might change; some guys might miss out and some might come in in the meantime. It’s game by game and knowing our roles.
On India’s performance: They played some good cricket tonight but we took some key wickets at key moments to restrict them to under 300, which was a good effort from us. They pulled it back during the chase after we were 2/200 and got on top of us, but it was a fantastic finish to the game and good to finish on the right side.
On death bowling: We work really hard at it. You have so many options to bowl at death and you have to enjoy taking wickets at death. Sometimes you will win or you will lose. You have to keep bowling yorkers though only way to practice is to string a few games together where your execution is really good. Which I think the bowling unit has found in the last two games, it is about doing time in the nets.
On early swing: You have to be flexible and assess conditions when you come out and think how it’s going to play, but quickly assess at the start of the day. Teams who do that are best at the game so we did discuss that at the start of the day how to bowl certain lengths and what we wanted to bowl to certain batsmen. We assessed it quite well.