Perth: If it is possible to underrate a tall left-arm fast bowler who can hurl the ball down at 145km/h, swing it late on his day, and has also learned to wobble it off the seam as is now the popular custom, then Australians have underrated Mitchell Starc.

He isn’t Captain Fantastic, Pat Cummins. He isn’t “the Bendemeer bullet”, Josh Hazlewood. He isn’t Glenn McGrath, Dennis Lillee, Jeff Thomson, Jason Gillespie or even Bruce Reid, another left-armer, whose injuries made him one of Australian cricket’s greatest maybes.

But with startling figures of 7-58, the best of his career, on day one of this Ashes series to round up England for just 172, Starc ensured that there will never again be questions asked of where he rates in the pace bowling pantheon. This was the performance of a leading

See Full Page