Starc not at his best for a while – Tim Paine
He finished with 1/123 in India’s first innings conceding 4.73 runs per over. This series, he has claimed 13 wickets, the least by any Australian frontline bowler, at an average of 34.53. Australia’s leading Test wicket-taker Shane Warne was especially severe, calling Starc’s efforts with the second new ball in the first Test atrocious.
Australia captain Tim Paine recognised that Starc’s bowling has been some way below what Australian fans have come to expect, but feels that he will come good again in time.
"I know he's playing at the highest level and they expect a lot from him but it doesn't always work; it's Test cricket, he's coming up against some very, very good batters and he's not quite at his best.
"We've got full confidence with a little bit of hard work – and he's going to have a little bit of time off during the one-dayers, so there's some time for him to go back and look at what's going wrong with him at the moment – and then he addresses that and we know when he's at his best he's as good as anyone in the world.
"Has he been at his best this series? No, he hasn't. Has he been for a little while? Probably not. Starcy knows that, he's working on it, he's being really honest about it and he's trying to figure out exactly what it is that's missing at the moment."
Still, Paine feels some of the criticism has been overly harsh, stating that even if he’s come up short, Starc has at least been putting his utmost effort in.
"I don't know what people expect from him," Paine said after play. “His stats for his whole career have been outstanding. When he's at his best, he's brilliant. When he's not, not so much, but he's not running out trying to spray the ball everywhere.
"That's what I don't get with the criticism he's getting; Mitchell Starc is trying his absolute best to do the same thing he did a year ago when he was swinging the ball around corners. He's down on confidence a little bit and I sometimes think people forget that he's just a bloke who's trying his best.”
For his part, Warne defended his criticism of Starc as not personal. “The bowlers, when you look back at 2018 and all the numbers they have put in for an attack that is meant to be one of the best in the world, the numbers don’t stack up,” the leg-spinner said on Fox Cricket. “That’s facts. It is not a personal vendetta or anything like that. We have nothing against these guys, we are just dealing in facts.”