On the first day of the second Test against the West Indies at The Gabba in Brisbane, star Australian left-arm seamer Mitchell Starc reached a career milestone by taking 350 wickets in Test cricket. With 348 scalps to his credit going into the match, the 33-year-old claimed the first wicket of the day in his fifth over when he trapped Tagenarine Chanderpaul (21 off 48) at second slip.
In his very next over, he struck again, forcing Alick Athanaze (8 off 22) to edge one straight to wicketkeeper Alex Carey. Consequently, in his 87th outing, the speedster achieved his 350 scalps in Test matches. After the play of the day, Mitchell Starc reflected on his achievement and said he would consider it after hanging up his boots. He also disclosed that Nathan Lyon had invited him to choose 150 more milestones.
“While numbers are useful, there are other things to consider once I’m finished. I still have a few wickets to claim. It’s nice to make a difference today, move past that one.There are still 150 to go, according to Gaz [Lyon], Mitchell Starc was cited by ESPNCricinfo as stating.
After surpassing 350 wickets, Starc needs just three more to tie the record of 355 held by the renowned Australian seamer Dennis Lillee. This would place Mitchell Starc as Australia’s second-highest wicket-taker among seamers and fourth-highest overall.
Regarding the possibility of matching Lillee’s stats, Mitchell Starc stated that it will be humiliating, but his main objective is still to take 20 wickets in the current match and win it for Australia.
“Closing in on Lillee is a very humbling experience and a lovely thing to tick off, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. We’ll all ponder [the milestones] when we’re done, sitting around with a beer at some golf course, and we just need to win by 20 wickets. As a group of guys, we are currently just having fun playing cricket,” he continued.
Mitchell Starc had a 4/68 final score for the day.
Having already removed Chanderpaul and Athanaze from the game, the 33-year-old went on to remove Justin Greaves and a well-positioned Kavem Hodge (71 off 194) to conclude the day with 4/68 in 20 overs. During 89.4 overs, West Indies concluded the day with a total of 266/8, led by Kevin Sinclair (16* off 37).
After Starc’s first over, the visitors were earlier down to 64/5, but a stand of 149 runs between Joshua Da Silva (79 off 157 and Kavem Hodge) lifted them to a decent score.
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