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Mitchell Starc’s team will lose up to INR 6 lakh (about
US $7,200) when he walks in at Eden Gardens on Saturday and releases the ball
for the first time in an IPL game since 2015. Assuming that Starc bowls his
four overs in every game, plays every match, and the Kolkata Knight Riders play
17 games, it is the cost of every legal ball that he delivers. If you examine
cold data, you could conclude that this is a significant risk.
Starc has featured in just two T20 matches outside of World Cups in the one and
a half years since the T20 World Cup began in 2022. Australia dropped Starc the
previous time he was available for a T20 World Cup match. Without Kane as a
substitute, Starc was Australia’s most expensive frontline bowler at that World
Cup at home in 2022.
Starc last
participated in T20 cricket outside of the Indian Premier League when playing
for Royal Challengers Bengaluru in 2015. In all T20 matches since that game,
Starc has given up 8.14 runs per over, compared to his career economy of 7.47.
In the interim, his average has been 25.53 as opposed to his lifetime average
of 19.74. Additionally, within that same time frame, Starc averaged 9.62 runs
per over in the death overs (his career economy during that phase is 8.74),
which ultimately led to his World Cup 2022 suspension.
Despite this, Starc
is one of the IPL’s most sought-after players. When Starc made his INR 5 crore
in the 2014 auction—his maiden IPL auction—just seven players made more money
than him. He was kept by RCB, which resulted in 20 wickets in the subsequent IPL.
In 2016 and 2017, he was sidelined by injuries and workload management;
nevertheless, in 2018, only five players drew bids greater than the INR 9.4
crore that Starc received from KKR.
Disregarding the quirks of auctions, Starc’s attraction to the IPL has been
consistent and widespread. By offering Starc a large contract, the IPL teams
demonstrate their appreciation for two aspects of T20 cricket: bowlers’ limited
agency and potential, which takes precedence over current performance.
Starc’s statistics
from the five matches he typically plays each year are not seen by the IPL.
Instead, it notices his true speed, height, left-arm angle, and ball-swinging
skill, as well as the fact that he is unmatched in the other two categories. It
is also acknowledged that longer-format experts may adapt to T20 more easily
than the other way around.
Starc is not only
available, healthy, and prepared for the entire IPL season, but he will also
join the team in an attempt to improve his own stats and standing in the
Twenty20 format. Starc claimed to have communicated his “pretty
strong” feelings to his team management following his recent exclusion by
Australia. With the IPL and the T20 World Cup quickly approaching, he will have
the opportunity to prove why he wasn’t left out.