You would have to chloroform Mitchell Starc to stop him playing in the Boxing Day Test. He took the same approach after this season’s Brisbane Test, when there was talk about Pat Cummins being rested. But pace plus accuracy is what Starc, Cummins, and Josh Hazlewood have brought. When Michael Clarke’s team arrived bullishly in 2015, bowling Starc and Johnson in concert, pace only briefly prospered at Lord’s. Caution might suggest that Starc should rest, but momentum – whether regarded as inexact science or superstition – has him desperate to play.

Source: The Guardian December 22, 2017 21:00 UTC