Mitchell Starc has rebuked South Africa for suggesting Kagiso Rabada will be sledged about his drugs ban, counselling the Proteas to catch up on how Pat Cummins’ top-ranked team has played its cricket over the past five years.
Speaking for the first time since his decision not to return to the Indian Premier League after he and wife Alyssa Healy were thrown into the midst of conflict between India and Pakistan, Starc told this masthead he was content with the call even if it means franchises are reluctant to recontract him in the future.
Mitchell Starc took issue with South Africa’s spruiking ahead of next week’s world Test championship final.Credit: Getty Images
Starc also rebuffed suggestions from former South African seamer Vernon Philander that England conditions suited the Proteas more than Australia. Philander has claimed the Australian batters have a “defect” against the moving ball and their paceman bowl too short to hit the stumps.
The notion of drugs-based sledging, pushed by South Africa’s high-performance chief Enoch Nkwe and also Rabada himself, left Starc feeling like he was living in a time warp where Australia’s players were unchanged since the infamous 2018 series in South Africa.
“I would say that people, media and fans, who’ve followed our team closely over the last few years would tend to agree [we don’t sledge],” Starc said.
“We play cricket our way, we haven’t played Test cricket against South Africa since [2023], so they can say or have an approach however they like.
“But we’ll stay true to how we’ve been playing our cricket, the way we’ve been playing to get into this final, the way we’ve been playing it the previous two years to get to that final [in 2023].
“We’ll have our tactical meetings and whatnot, but ultimately this team has shown over a period of time that we’ll stick to the way we play our cricket. Close followers of the team would have a different opinion to South Africa about how we’re going to play this week.”
Starc played alongside Proteas batter Tristan Stubbs for Delhi in the IPL and the pair got along well. Cummins has spoken about light-heartedly checking with his Hyderabad teammate Wiaan Mulder whether the South African was fine training with a Kookaburra ball as a joke about the Proteas picking a Dukes for the Test final.
Philander’s spicier comments about Australian weaknesses also seemed to be drawn from an earlier time. Australia’s most recent series against South Africa, on home soil in 2022-23, included a two-day victory in Brisbane on the greenest of pitches.
“We’ve all played enough cricket to know when you might have to change tack in the conditions or adapt from how you started a session or a game,” Starc said.
“Vernon’s gone from someone who’s a master of his skills to a master of his mouth.
“But it’s going to be a good contest. Two very good bowling attacks, so it could be a battle of the batting really in terms of how guys go about handling conditions where it might move around or swing.
“In the end it’s going to be down to which team adapts to the conditions the quickest and both teams are going to have a similar prep in terms of timeframe in the country.
Vernon Philander with Quinton de Kock in 2016.Credit: AP
“It’ll be a good spectacle, and we’ll see who can adapt the quickest.”
As for his IPL escape, Starc said that he was comfortable with the decision he made to stay home after the tournament resumed. Starc revealed that he raised concerns about the game in Dharamsala so close to the Pakistan border before it was summarily cancelled due to an air raid warning.
Delhi’s players were then compelled to spend “six hours in a car and six hours on a train” to get back to their base, amid a vacuum of accurate information about what was happening around them.
“I’m comfortable with my decision and how I felt about the whole situation and how it was handled,” Starc said. “That’s why I made my decision post-that, and my focus changed to red-ball cricket for about a week prior to coming over here.
Mitchell Starc arrives home in Sydney after the IPL was postponed.Credit: AAPIMAGE
“Time will tell with repercussions or how it looks with guys that didn’t return. But I’ve had my questions and concerns leading into that game, and obviously we saw what happened, which played a part in my decision. There was a little bit of that to my decision around the Champions Trophy [in Pakistan]. And then once the tournament was delayed you start to think about guys’ preparation for the Test match.
“Things were handled differently for different players and different teams, the guys up in Dharamsala, the Punjab guys were part of that, and while both teams had similar experiences up there, all those guys returned for Punjab, and Jake [Fraser-McGurk] and I chose not to. So it was a very individual decision, and I’m happy to live with whatever comes of that.”
While he has foregone participation in many editions of the IPL to prioritise his body and international career, Starc also noted that he had never pulled out of a tournament after being picked up in the auction.
“I’m still heavily committed to the Delhi group, and I’m not someone that’s gone into tournaments and pulled out after being picked up in an auction or whatever that looks like,” he said. “These are different circumstances.
“It was more a question of not having enough information leading into making a decision [about] things of that degree. I had a discussion back home then came to a decision, and whatever comes from that I’m comfortable with that and we move forward.”
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