The results of a Mitchell Starc back scan will have a major bearing on Australia’s ability to close out the fifth Test in Sydney and regain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Starc bowled through back pain on Monday as Australia claimed a dramatic Boxing Day Test victory against India in front of record crowds at the MCG. It gave Australia a 2-1 lead but they must win the series to regain the trophy India have held for almost a decade.
The imposing left-arm quick had scans on Tuesday which will determine whether he will be available for the fifth and final Test at the SCG. He is racing the clock during a short turnaround which sees the Sydney fixture start on Friday.
While Starc was clearly in discomfort bowling during the last day in Melbourne his pace did not drop, leaving coach Andrew McDonald optimistic that he would be available.
Australia have already lost one front-line bowler, Josh Hazlewood, and can ill afford to lose another. Scott Boland has stepped in admirably but there is little Test experience behind him.
Sean Abbott and Jhye Richardson are on standby. While Abbott has played two Sheffield Shield games for NSW this season around Australian white-ball commitments, claiming 13 wickets at 19.85 for the Blues, Richardson has managed just one Shield match in each of the past two seasons because of injury.
Abbott, 32, has been a white-ball regular but is yet to play a Test while an injury-plagued Richardson, 28, played the last of his three Tests three years ago. Lance Morris, 26, the fastest bowler in Australia when fully fit, has had his past two preseasons interrupted by back issues.
Fast bowlers making it through the summer has been an issue since the Tests were crammed into as little as seven weeks from 1998, instead of a block of mid-season one-day matches dividing the five-day contests.
The Sydney Test was made the last of the season and given a regular January 2 starting date. This was pushed out to no earlier than January 3 to allow the bowlers an extra day to recover.
Turning 35 on January 30, an age where only six faster bowlers have played for Australia since World War II, Starc has carved himself a remarkable place in cricket history.
With 373 Test wickets at an average of 27.78 and a strike rate of 48.8, combined with 2189 runs at 20.26, Starc sits in his own exclusive club. No other player in Test history has managed 350 wickets with an average under 28 and a strike rate under 50 while accumulating 2000 runs at an average better than 20.
This is astonishing given all the greats who have come before him or are currently playing.
Not even his captain fantastic, Pat Cummins, will be able to join Starc in that club unless he can lift his batting average above 17.39. Although Cummins is heading somewhere special with the ball. The 31-year-old has 289 wickets in 66 Tests at 22.54 and a strike rate of 46.4.
Mitchell Starc celebrates after taking a wicket. (Photo by Santanu Banik/Speed Media/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Any bowler with a strike rate under 50 is on the peak of Everest. Of the 39 Australians to take 100 wickets or more, Cummins and Starc are the only players to manage it.
Despite his destructive qualities Starc was not guaranteed a regular place in the team until well into his career. As a 51-Test veteran with 211 wickets at 28 at a strike rate under 50, Starc was chosen for just one Test during Australia’s 2019 Ashes tour.
It is Starc’s durability as much as his ability to swing a ball at pace which has been the most remarkable aspect of his career. Many of Australia’s finest fast bowlers had called it quits by 34 as their battered bodies could no longer propel the ball at speeds which made them difficult.
This twilight zone may be starting to engulf Hazlewood, who turns 34 next Sunday. He has been Australia’s best bowler at times during recent seasons when fit, but has missed as many Tests as he’s played over the past three years, predominantly with side strains.
When Starc does turn 35 in the coming days he will join Ray Lindwall, who finished at 38, McGrath (36), Keith Miller (36), team mate Scott Boland, who is 35, Ryan Harris (35) and Jeff Thomson (35) in that group of senior quicks.
But it is the here and now that Starc and Australia are most concerned about.
While they will be playing for a win, at the very least they must force a draw to finish on top and, for a change, Sydney’s often fickle weather may not be much help preventing play, with largely fine days forecast.
It would take another superhuman effort to ward off India in this Test if Starc ends up on the sidelines.