Legendary Australia pacer Mitchell Starc will play his 100th Test match against West Indies at Kingston, starting July 12. He will be only the second Australia pacer after Glenn McGrath to play 100 or more matches in the longest format of the game. He has clinched 395 wickets to far in the format and has a marvellous opportunity to reach the 400-mark in his 100th Test.
Ahead of the feat, the 34-year-old opened up on reaching the milestone. He mentioned ‘feeling old’ and highlighted the years of sacrifice and dedication to become one of the most decorated pacers of the current generation. The Sydney-born added, stating that he has let his team down multiple times due to injuries, and he doesn’t want to repeat that. For the same, he takes care of his body, and if that means missing franchise cricket, Starc doesn’t mind.
“I've tried to look after my body and find ways through pain barriers to make an impact for the team. I've been a player that's been injured and left the team a man down before - I never wanted to do that again,” Starc told cricket.com.au.
Don’t regret missing franchise cricket: Starc
“The years that I did miss franchise cricket, I don’t regret that at all. To get my body in as good a spot as I could for Australia to play 99 games, spend some time at home, spend some time with Alyssa [Healy] and family. That’s the reason why I did those things. Whether it’s paid off now, being a couple of days away from playing 100, or the series wins or the Test match wins, looking back at it, I wouldn’t change it,” he mentioned.
Ahead of the 2021-22 edition of the Ashes, there were multiple talks about dropping Starc from the Test squad. However, the team management backed the pacer and on the very first ball of the series, he bowled a cracking delivery to pick up the wicket of Rory Burns. Since then, he has been phenomenal in the format, clinching 140 wickets at 27.07.